Science AMA Series: we’re Bruce Jakosky, Dave Brain, and Rob Lillis, science investigators on the MAVEN mission that is orbiting Mars and studying the planet’s upper atmosphere. The team’s first results suggest that loss of gas to space was important in changing the Martian climate. Ask us anything!

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My name is Bruce Jakosky (http://ift.tt/1snBYfN) from the University of Colorado. I’m the Principal Investigator of the MAVEN mission, and have an interest in the complex volatile system on Mars, reaching from the deep interior to the region that interacts with the incoming solar wind. My name is Dave Brain (http://ift.tt/1WzUILr), and I’m a member of the science team and an Assistant Professor in Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado. My research focuses on interactions of the solar wind with planetary magnetospheres and the implications. And I’m Rob Lillis (http://ift.tt/1mps9A0), a Research Scientist at the University of California at Berkeley and a member of the MAVEN science team. I’m interested in the energy input into the Mars atmosphere that comes from solar storms and the corresponding response of the upper atmosphere.

The MAVEN (http://ift.tt/ZG0v3t) spacecraft has been in orbit around Mars for just over an Earth year. We’re getting enough measurements that we’ve now been able to see the general behavior of the upper atmosphere and also its response to a significant solar storm. We’ve determined that atmospheric gas escapes from Mars to space in large enough quantities that this loss probably was a major mechanism for changing the climate on Mars and turning it from a warm, wet environment to the present-day cold, dry environment.

We will be back at 2 pm EST (11 am PST, 7 pm UTC) to answer your questions, Ask us anything!

">Science AMA Series: we’re Bruce Jakosky, Dave Brain, and Rob Lillis, science investigators on the MAVEN mission that is orbiting Mars and studying the planet’s upper atmosphere. The team’s first results suggest that loss of gas to space was important in changing the Martian climate. Ask us anything!