NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft has provided the first direct evidence of “sputtering”—a powerful atmospheric escape process where solar wind particles blast atoms off Mars. The newly published study confirms that this process played a major role in the Red Planet’s transformation from a once-wet, habitable world to its current barren state. Argon gas measurements and long-term data reveal that sputtering happens at a rate four times higher than once thought and was especially intense billions of years ago, accelerating the loss of atmosphere and surface water.
