Tag: liquid water

Solar Wind Stripping the Martian Atmosphere

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We know that Mars lost an ocean of water, but what was the exact mechanism?  We also know that the magnetic field of Mars was lost a long time ago, and contributed to this major loss of water and atmosphere.  In a press conference today, NASA officials working with data from the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft, have shown that major solar storms have increased the amount of atmosphere and water loss over time. “Mars appears to have had a thick atmosphere warm enough to support liquid water which is a key ingredient and medium for life as...

Some Planets are More Livable Than Earth!

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When the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope comes a few years from now, we will have then opportunity to probe deeper into the cosmos than ever before, to see things we had only dreamed of seeing previously.  Among the prime targets for this modern marvel of human ingenuity are potentially habitable exoplanets, where future humans could live, provided there isn’t already life occupying the real estate.  To help astronomers assign importance to the growing number of exoplanets, researchers at the University of Washington’s Virtual Planetary Laboratory have devised an index to represent the habitability of worlds, near and...