Where the Martian atmosphere disappeared to

American scientists from NASA, with the help of MAVEN apparatus, for the first time directly recorded the key process of atmospheric atomization on Mars.

This process destroyed the dense atmosphere of the planet and made it uninhabitable. The study is published in the scientific journal Science Advances.

Mars once possessed rivers, lakes, and perhaps even shallow seas, as evidenced by geologic evidence.

However, sustaining liquid water requires a dense atmosphere, which has gradually disappeared.

Scientists have long speculated that the culprit was the solar wind – a stream of charged particles from the Sun, which literally “blew away” the Martian gas shell.

High-energy ions of the solar wind collide with neutral atoms of the atmosphere, transferring them energy sufficient to overcome the gravity of the planet.

To confirm the hypothesis, the scientists used argon, an inert gas that serves as an ideal marker of atomization.

MAVEN data showed that its concentration increases dramatically at altitudes.

There, the solar wind bombards the atmosphere, and its losses are four times greater than predicted by models.