Mystery of Mars’ lost atmosphere solved at last, thanks to NASA’s Maven mission
“We also learned that the atmospheric loss was gradual, and took tens-to-hundreds of millions of years, meaning two important things:
1. If there was life on the surface of Mars early on, the atmospheric changes were gradual enough that we have reason to believe it could have evolved to find a suitable niche where it may survive even to the present day.
2. If we decided to terraform Mars by artificially creating a dense atmosphere, it would survive for many millions of years today before we needed to replenish it.”
If you came to the Solar System some 500 million years after its formation, you would’ve found two world with oceans of liquid water, continents and all the conditions we know of for life to begin thriving: Earth and Mars. But unlike our own world, Mars’ organic history was cut short when it lost its atmosphere and became a barren, desert wasteland. Thanks to the Maven mission, we now know how and when this happened!