Researchers Have Found Traces Of Atomic Oxygen On Mars

Researchers in NASA have been in the search of oxygen in Mars' atmosphere and information technology seems that for the first fourth dimension in 40 years they accept succeeded in doing merely that. All thank you to the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), which is about 13.7 kilometers above the surface of the Earth.

The researchers found atomic oxygen in the upper atmosphere of the planet. The upper atmosphere known as the mesosphere will help researchers in understanding how gases escaped from the Martian land long ago. This is even meliorate news because the Martian state is potentially a hereafter home for humans. While it's all neat something was a little off as the researchers only found one-half of the oxygen they expected. The last fourth dimension any traces of atomic oxygen were constitute in the Martian atmosphere was is the 1970s during the Viking and Mariner missions.

"Diminutive oxygen in the Martian atmosphere is notoriously difficult to mensurate," said SOFIA project scientist, Pamela Marcum. "To notice the far-infrared wavelengths needed to discover atomic oxygen, researchers must be above the majority of World'south atmosphere and utilise highly sensitive instruments, in this case a spectrometer. SOFIA provides both capabilities."

The main reason for such a big gap is the Earth's skies. The sky is dense and moist so it makes viewing the Universe very hard and sometimes inaccurate. To counter this trouble they take adult many techniques such as creating false stars. This is where SOFIA comes in, for people who don't know SOFIA is just like a large aeroplane with a big 100 inch diameter telescope lying on it. The telescope is above most of Earth's atmosphere thus it can easily notice things that are difficult to detect from near the surface. The team of NASA made their calculations using this specialized equipment.

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The team hasn't stated by how much their expectations of the diminutive oxygen were not met. Only it's a given that information technology is a lot lesser than expected. So the team volition keep its work to check out other areas of the Martian temper and deduce that this difference wasn't due to a simple variation in the temper. Then till we get the full results nosotros can merely rejoice on the fact that they have plant oxygen on the Red planet and the possibility of finding more than (hopefully).

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