NASA's New Mars Mission: To Study the Mystery of the Missing Atmosphere

NASA's next rendezvous with the Red Planet got the go-ahead this week. The space agency approved development of MAVEN, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission, which is scheduled to launch in November 2013. In the last decade, missions like the Phoenix Lander, the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, and the Mars Express have reinforced the case that our neighbor was once watery, and far more hospitable to life than the planet we see today. The ancient evidence of liquid water suggests that the planet once had a dense atmosphere, which is now long gone. MAVEN's mission is to investigate the interaction between Mars's now-thin atmosphere and the solar wind, and to look for clues to how and when the sun stripped away the planet's thick atmosphere. Many researchers think that Mars's loss of its magnetic field billions of years ago started the process.