A spacecraft designed to
dive deep into the upper atmosphere of Mars and find out what happened to the
planet's water took off from Cape Canaveral on Monday, in Nasa's most ambitious
attempt yet to understand the causes of dramatic climate change on our
planetary neighbour.
The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission, or MAVEN, is bristling with instruments
able to measure the effect of solar wind and analyse thin traces of gases, in
order to help scientists model the process that left the planet so dry and
barren. Its launch follows findings from Nasa's recent Mars rover mission which
support growing evidence in rock samples that there was once water on the
surface of the Mars, protected by a thick atmosphere that could have supported
primitive life.
Orbiting between 3,864 miles and 77 miles
above the desert surface, Maven is expected to reveal how Mars' atmosphere was
gradually peeled away over billions of years, by the sun's radiation.
"Maven is going to focus on trying to
understand what the history of the atmosphere has been, how the climate has
changed through time and how that has influenced the evolution of the surface
and the potential habitability – at least by microbes – of Mars," said
lead scientist Bruce Jakosky. "Mars is a complicated system, just as
complicated as the Earth in its own way. You can't hope, with a single spacecraft,
to study all aspects and to learn everything there is to know about it. With
Maven, we're exploring the single biggest unexplored piece of Mars so far.
Among the eight instruments and nine sensors
on board the spacecraft is a magnetometer that will help scientists measure
changes in the magnetic field around Mars that would once have protected its
atmosphere from solar wind.
In September, decade-long preparations for
the mission were briefly interrupted by the US government shutdown.
Maven will take nearly a year to reach the
red planet and scientists estimate it should be sending back its first results
by early 2015.
No comments:
Post a Comment