MAVEN Magnetometer

Released Tuesday, March 26, 2013

ID: 11224

- Visualizations by:
- Chris Smith

When you navigate with a compass you can orient yourself thanks to Earth's global magnetic field. But on Mars, if you were to walk around with a compass it would haphazardly point from one anomaly to another, because the Red Planet does not possess a global magnetosphere. Scientists think that this lack of a protective magnetic field may have allowed the solar wind to strip away the Martian atmosphere over billions of years, and now NASA's MAVEN spacecraft will study this process in detail with its pair of ring core fluxgate magnetometers.

MAVEN's dual magnetometers will allow scientists to study the interaction between the solar wind and the Martian atmosphere, giving us a better understanding of how Mars has evolved from a warm, wet climate to the cold, arid one we see today.

Watch this video on the NASAexplorer YouTube channel.

For complete transcript, click here.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Animators
- Chris Smith (HTSI)
- Walt Feimer (HTSI)
- Michael Lentz (USRA)
Video editors
- Michael Randazzo (Advocates in Manpower Management, Inc.)
- Dan Gallagher (USRA)
Interviewees
- Jared Espley (NASA/GSFC)
- John Connerney (NASA/GSFC)
Producer
- Dan Gallagher (USRA)
Project support
- Aaron E. Lepsch (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
Videographer
- Rob Andreoli (Advocates in Manpower Management, Inc.)