[X] My Assistant

[atomoid]

such a quiet mission, finally an update was released today: NASA’s MAVEN Spacecraft Completes First Deep Dip Campaign

and another item i didnt notice previously: NASA’s MAVEN Mission Identifies Links in Chain Leading to Atmospheric Loss


Edit: doh!! wrong thread..

ADMIN: Moved to start a new topic of Orbital Science from the start of the deep dip campaign.

[dvandorn]

Well... if dust is observably being sputtered off of Mars, as these observations suggest, that sort of explains where the red dust covering parts of Phobos and Deimos came from. I had always thought that dust plumes from impacts, even over billions of years, didn't seem like they would provide enough material to cause the pigmentation on the moons we see today. If these solar-wind-generated sputtered air-and-dust plumes have been happening for millennia, and if some fraction of the plumes are accelerated by the solar wind interactions out to the distance of the moons, we then have a process for the material transfer that makes more sense, and explains what we see on the moons.

Also, this shows rather strongly how solar wind interactions with the upper atmosphere could well have sputtered off a relatively thick Martian atmosphere over billions of years, doesn't it? Consider that a lot more gas molecules would get accelerated to escape velocity by such interactions than dust particles, and that we can see how many dust particles have been boosted (enough to account for the red coloration of the moons), and you get a good gut-level appreciation of the long-term effectiveness of the solar wind's sputtering capabilities.

-the other Doug