A NASA apparatus recorded a unique event on Mars: 24 years ago the same thing happened to Earth
By the end of December 2022, NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft in orbit around Mars discovered a completely unexpected and extremely rare phenomenon. The solar wind disappeared over the red planet, causing the planet’s atmosphere and magnetosphere to expand approximately threefold.
About the results observations said the lead author of the new study, Jasper Halekas from Iowa State University. The disappearance of the solar wind was due to a powerful solar event that stopped the flow of charged solar particles reaching Mars.
“When we first saw the data and how dramatic the drop in solar wind was, it was almost unbelievable,” Halekas said.
Further research showed that the disappearance of the solar wind was just the beginning of interesting events.
It is known that the atmosphere of Mars suffers from the solar wind, which literally blows it away from the planet. This process is known to scientists as “atmospheric escape.”
On the day the solar wind disappeared, December 25, 2022, much faster particles left behind a void of “extremely low-density solar wind,” according to NASA, which led to reduced pressure on the red planet’s atmosphere.
As a result, the Martian atmosphere and ionosphere inflated more than three times, which led to temporary demagnetization of the ionosphere.
Everything that happened during this process was recorded by MAVEN scientific instruments. Now scientists have the opportunity to better understand how these processes work.
In addition, this event allows them to guess what Mars might be like under different cosmic conditions.
“We’re really seeing how Mars responds to the effective removal of the solar wind. This gives us a great opportunity to study what Mars would be like if it were orbiting a less windy star,” Halekas said.
It’s worth noting that MAVEN was designed to observe the interaction between the Sun and the Martian atmosphere, so it’s not surprising that “the spacecraft provided exceptional data during this anomalous solar event.”
Already on December 27, 2022, the solar wind resumed its pressure on Mars, causing the atmosphere and ionosphere to shrink to their usual sizes.
It should be noted that in 1999, a NASA satellite recorded a similar event on Earth. Then the disappearance of the solar wind led to the fact that the ionosphere of our planet increased fivefold.
Earlier OBOZ.UA talked about what used to be Life could exist on Mars, but the planet “committed suicide”.
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