Voice Off Screen: The evolution of Mars from a warm and wet planet to the cold and
dry desert we see today is one of our solar system's
biggest secrets. The NASA MAVEN mission is returning new results
that are shedding a little bit of light on the secret, and here to tell us more
about those results from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt
Maryland is NASA Goddard's Chief Scientist Dr. Jim Garvin.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
Jim: Well thanks for having me.
Voice Off Screen: MAVEN is returning some exciting results on the martian atmosphere, what are we seeing?
Jim Garvin: Well MAVEN is giving us a new insight into how that
wonderful Mars of the past; warm, wet, hospitable
has gone from that state to its present dry cold foreboding state.
By measuring how Mars interacts with the energy
from the Sun, this solar wind, this streaming set of invisible particles
we're watching how its atmosphere is losing parts of itself
and if you play that tape backwards we can start to fill in the puzzle pieces
on that ancient warm wet Mars and that dry foreboding desert Mars of today
Voice Off Screen: Wow, so what role does atmospheric loss
play in Mars' ability to support life?
Garvin: Life is all about environments. Habitable envrionments, warm, wet, fuzzy,
energy, all that great stuff. The Mars of today is not like that
the Mars of the past we believe was warm, wet, and even habitable. But how
did the Mars of the past through climate change go to the Mars of today which is
dry desert like... almost impossible to imagine it being alive
as we presently understand that. MAVEN is filling in the gaps, by measuring
atmospheric loss today and the real Mars, the Mars that's living and breathing
in our solar system and giving us a position on how
it got from today, back in time. And that magical
if you will, time machine tour is what we need to understand how planets evolve.
Voice Off Screen: Interesting. So what is MAVEN telling us about the impact
of the Sun on the martian climate?
So Mars is different from Earth, and
martian climate today of course is very non earth like, and so we now realize
the interactions of Mars with the Sun and especially its atmosphere as
its being peeled away to space is critical in the Mars of today
and how it got to be that way. We think that will help us connect Mars back
in time as the sun was more active, there were more energetic events
that may have helped to accelerate the loss of atmosphere over time and MAVEN is giving us
the here and now today which we need to run the tape backwards.
Voice Off Screen: Now a recent NASA discovery has actually found water on Mars
surface, how do MAVEN's results help us understand what's happened
to water on the planet?
Jim: Well MAVEN is all about the big picture Mars with
water and loss of water and carbon dioxide from space
in interactions with the sun. We also know at very local scales
there's the expression we think of modern water, small trickles,
and we're observing that with Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. But the big picture
is how that water in the atmosphere and the small amount that's exchanged from within the
ground is lost to space and MAVEN is measuring that, its the big picture.
We need to know that to go to Mars.
Voice Off Screen: Where can we go to learn more about MAVEN and NASA's future with Mars?
Jim: Well, one can go to www.nasa.gov/maven we
have fantastic animations that show what MAVEN is measuring. Things
that our eyes don't see that we can now see through these wonderful animations.
And lots of other links to places that describe our Mars program. This program of
exploring our brotherly planet.
Voice Off Screen: Great, Dr. Jim Garvin thank you for joining us.
Jim: Thanks a lot for having me.