<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Thomson Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">Astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin Jr., lunar module pilot, walks on the surface of the moon near the leg of the Lunar Module (LM) "Eagle" during the Apollo 11 extravehicular activity (EVA in this NASA handout photo</p></div><p></p></div></div>It's been <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/its-been-47-years-since-we-made-our-1st-footprints-on-the-moon-here-are-some-facts-you-might-not-know-about-it-2016-7">almost half a century</a> since we first sent human beings to the moon and yet we're still sorting out the effects of this wild journey.</p><p>A new study published today in Scientific Reports found that, compared to astronauts traveling to the International Space Station (ISS), <a href="http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/srep29901">deep-space exploring astronauts might be more likely to suffer heart problems later in life</a>.</p><p>Of the 24 Apollo astronauts who ventured into deep space, eight have died.</p><p>This study only included seven of the deceased astronauts because the eighth died after the data analysis had been completed. Still, it found that 43% of these Apollo deaths were due to cardiovascular problems. This rate is <strong>about four to five times higher than in other astronauts</strong>, and nearly double the 27% cardiovascular disease death rate of the general public.</p><p>Because the study was based on such a small sample size, <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2016/07/28/did-traveling-to-the-moon-take-a-toll-on-astronauts-hearts/#.V5pOPpMrKi4">we should be cautious about drawing definitive medical conclusions from the data</a>, Michael Delp, lead author of the study, told Discover. Still, it's definitely something that scientists should think about, especially as they plan out future manned missions to Mars or the moon.</p><p>"We thought it was important to publish these results because it is also difficult to ignore the possibility that deep space travel ... may be having a much more adverse effect on cardiovascular health than previously estimated," Delp said.</p><p>The scientists believe that these effects are because of high-energy radiation like cosmic rays and charged particles from solar flares. Here on Earth and on the ISS (which is in low Earth orbit), Earth's magnetic field deflects most of this radiation. But in deep space, these high-energy particles runs rampant. So, the astronauts on the moon were largely unprotected from it.</p><p>These particles have so much energy that they <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2016/07/28/did-traveling-to-the-moon-take-a-toll-on-astronauts-hearts/#.V5pOPpMrKi4">strip electrons from atoms as they pass by</a>. This can damage the cells lining the walls of blood vessels, which are the same cells that prevent plaque from forming inside the walls of blood vessels. Plaque build-up can lead to blood clots, coronary heart disease, heart attacks, or strokes.</p><p>Delp and his team <a href="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-07/fsu-aae072516.php">exposed mice to similar radiation as what the Apollo astronauts were exposed to</a>. And, after six months (which is equal to about 20 human years for mice), they found that the radiation had negatively affected the vascular health of the mice. </p><p>"We know very little about the effects of deep space radiation on human health, particularly on the cardiovascular system," Delp said. "[But] this gives us the first glimpse into its adverse effects on humans." This kind of research is especially important as we continue to push the boundaries of human space exploration further into the great unknown of space.  </p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/brown-eggs-white-cost-health-grocery-chicken-food-breakfast-2016-7">Brown eggs are not healthier than white eggs, but here's why they cost more</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="hja2ttNDE6lNSicTWFH3DFpKZlDZ1ULW" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Apollo astronauts are more likely to suffer heart problems, and we need to figure out why before we go back into deep space

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>The vacuum of space is filled with dangerous radiation that can seep through spacecraft, spacesuits, and even the bodies of astronauts, and scientists are trying to figure out the risks it poses for humans traveling beyond Earth's protective atmosphere.</p><p>So if we ever want to send <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-nye-why-send-humans-to-mars-2015-4" target="_parent">humans to Mars</a>, scientists need to know what would happen to us if we get hit with radiation from a cosmic ray or a solar flare. </p><p>To get some insight, scientists exposed mice brains to radiation blasts designed to mimic a cosmic ray in a<span> new study published May 1 in the journal </span><a href="http://www.eurekalert.org/jrnls/sciadvances/pdf.php?date=2015-05&amp;file=parihar150501.pdf" target="_parent">Science Advances</a>.<span> Results </span>showed that the mice experienced major brain inflammation that interrupted the ability of their neurons to communicate with each other. <strong>That seriously messed up the mice's cognitive function and affected their ability to both learn and remember</strong>.</p><p>"This is not positive news for astronauts deployed on a two- to three-year round trip to Mars," Charles Limoli, lead study author and professor of oncology, said in a <a href="http://www.eurekalert.org/emb_releases/2015-05/uoc--lgc042815.php" target="_parent">press release</a>.</p><p>We don't know that much about what radiation does to astronauts because the International Space Station (ISS) hovers within the planet's magnetosphere that protects against most dangerous space radiation. <span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Still, even ISS astronauts are required to wear dosimeters that measure how much radiation they're exposed to, and once they reach a certain limit, </span><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/284274main_Radiation_HS_Mod2.pdf" target="_parent">NASA will not allow them</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> into space again. </span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span>A mission to Mars holds many more risks than just hanging out on the</span><em> </em><span>(ISS). </span></span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">While traveling to the red planet, humans will have to fly straight through the radiation-filled remnants of billions of star explosions and through the dangerous streams of solar flares constantly erupting from the sun. So it's critical that NASA and other space agencies understand how space radiation can affect human health.</span></p><p>Obviously we can't expose human brains to radiation, but studying how it affects the brains of mice can give us some insight into how it might affect us.</p><h3>Blasting brains</h3><p>Researchers took an initial brain scan of a group of mice and then hit them with a stream of ionized oxygen and titanium that mimics the type and intensity of radiation we'd encounter in space. Six weeks later they scanned the brains of the mice again and found some serious changes.</p><p>The mice had far fewer dendritic synapses - the branch-shaped structures on neurons that carry signals from neuron to neuron. Here you can see the dendrites before the radiation (left) and after the radiation (right):</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The stream of radiation acted like a spray of bullets and broke off pieces of the dendrite branches.</p><p>The researchers then put the radiation-exposed mice and a group of radiation-free mice through a series of tests designed to measure learning ability and memory. The radiated mice were less curious and less interested in the learning tests than the normal mice and they were more easily confused on the memory tests.</p><h3>What this means for space travel</h3><p>If something similar happens to the brains of humans, that could significantly influence an astronaut's ability to react to an emergency in space or concentrate on high-stress tasks, the authors conclude.</p><p>"Although we cannot simulate exactly the complex and prolonged charged particle irradiation pattern encountered in space, the present data do demonstrate that there is some likelihood of developing certain radiation-induced cognitive deficits," they write in the paper.</p><p><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19296966" target="_parent">Other research</a> has shown that loss of dendritic branches is linked to cognitive diseases like Alzheimer's. Similar but more severe results have been observed in <a href="http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/type/brain-tumour/treatment/radiotherapy/long-term-side-effects-of-brain-tumour-radiotherapy" target="_parent">brain cancer patients</a> who get much higher doses of radiation in cancer treatments.</p><p>It would likely take months for any kind of brain impairment to show up in astronauts if they were hit with a high-intensity beam of radiation, Limoli said. But that's plenty of time for damage to set in during a mission to Mars, which would take at least six months using on today's space travel technology.</p><p>Solutions for long-term space travel could include outfitting spacecraft with areas that can shield against radiation better, but there's really no way to completely avoid exposure, according to Limoli.</p><p>Right now Limoli is working on treatments that can protect against neuron damage, but the research is still in its infancy.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-astronaut-space-walk-2015-4">Here's what astronauts actually see when they go out for a walk in space</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="FrYzVudDqeF-ZkHlzjM2zOzSrPG-Ex1t" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Here's what happened when scientists blasted mouse brains with radiation to simulate what it'd be like to get hit with a cosmic ray

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="NASA/JPL-Caltech" title_caption="NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity recorded this view just after reaching the summit of " Cape="" Tribulation="" on="" the="" western="" rim="" of="" Endeavour="" Crater="" Jan.="" Martian="" day.="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54b7e5f76bb3f70808bd40ee-960/pia19098_hires.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA19098">NASA/JPL-Caltech</a></span></p><p class="caption">NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity recorded this view just after reaching the summit of "Cape Tribulation," on the western rim of Endeavour Crater, on Jan. 6, 2015, the 3,894th Martian day.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Mars is a frozen wasteland devoid of <a href="http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/review/dr-marc-solar-system/life-on-mars.html">life</a>, <a href="http://www.racetomars.ca/mars/article_water.jsp">liquid water</a>, and <a href="http://science.howstuffworks.com/mars5.htm">breathable atmosphere</a>. So why are companies like <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-colonizing-mars-2014-1">SpaceX</a> and <a href="https://medium.com/matter/all-dressed-up-for-mars-and-nowhere-to-go-7e76df527ca0">Mars One</a> so bent on colonizing such unfriendly territory?</p>
<p>"Human beings have always looked to expand the territory that we can live in," former NASA astronaut Jeffrey A. Hoffman told Business Insider. We spoke with Hoffman at <a href="http://www.worldchangingideassummit.com/">BBC FUTURE's World-Changing Ideas Summit</a> about what it will take to colonize Mars. "You'll find people who are willing to go and live there because they can."</p>
<p>Hoffman is even confident that if we set our minds to it, then we have a good chance of successfully colonizing the Red planet. "Life is always looking for new environmental niches and habitats and often evolves to be able to live there," he said.</p>
<p>Humans must overcome many obstacles between the Mars we know today and establishing a future Mars Metropolis. The two biggest hurdles standing in our way right now are radiation and technology, Hoffman said.</p>
<h2>Ruthless Radiation</h2>
<p>"The first [hurdle] is the radiation that you're exposed to when you're in deep space and there's a lot of research going on there now," to figure out how to deal with this limitation, Hoffman said.</p>
<p>Since 2008, more than <a href="http://spaceradiation.usra.edu/research/fundedProjects.pdf">40 scientists</a> at institutions across the country have been studying what space radiation does to the human body and how to mitigate those effects. Moreover, NASA has established <a href="http://spaceradiation.usra.edu/research/">nearly a dozen</a> specialized centers of research in this field.</p>
<p>The sun is primary source of harmful radiation that astronauts would face on their way to Mars. Powerful bursts from the sun called solar flares, like the one shown below, release lethal doses of radiation with the power of 160 billion megatons of TNT.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="NASA" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54418050ecad042c03388166-960/solar flares and the sun.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1Kact6QHG0">NASA</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div>We are safe here on Earth because our planet's magnetic field and thick atmosphere protect us from these radiation blasts, but there's no protection in space. During deep space flights, astronauts would be bombarded by dangerous, high-energy radiation, like x-rays and gamma rays, from solar flares.</p>
<p>The human body can handle certain kinds of radiation in small doses, but the longer you are exposed the more likely your body will blow past those "safe" radiation levels into the danger zone. The result is a <a href="http://www.nsbri.org/SCIENCE-and-TECHNOLOGY/Radiation-Effects/">series of scary symptoms</a> like vomiting, fatigue, changes to white blood cell count, and impaired immune system, all of which could jeopardize an astronaut's ability to do much else.</p>
<p>Long term, radiation exposure will increase astronauts' risk of developing cancer and can also lead to damaged cardiovascular system, eyes, and central nervous system.</p>
<p>In order to colonize Mars, we first need to get there safely and in good health. That's why it's so important that scientists find a way to protect astronauts before they travel anywhere far from Earth, Hoffman said.</p>
<p>"There's various avenues," he explained. "There's new types of radiation shielding. Of course, if we had better rockets, we could get there faster and you wouldn't be exposed to as much radiation. And then there's also genetic investigations that people have different sensitivities to radiation and there may be also <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/potassium-iodide-protects-troops-from-nuclear-fallout-2012-4">pharmacological ways</a> of mitigating the impact of radiation."</p>
<h2>Making The Most Of Martian Resources</h2>
<p>The second hurdle to colonization, Hoffman said, is the technology that will help humans survive on Mars.</p>
<p>"If you're going to spend any significant amount of time on Mars, you ought to be able to use Martian resources to help survive because it's extremely expensive to bring anything to Mars from Earth."</p>
<p>According to NASA, it costs <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/background/facts/astp.html_prt.htm">$10,000 to send a single pound</a> of payload into space. However, the space agency is working on next-generation launch vehicles to be ready for long-term space travel by 2025, and they hope these new vehicles will reduce the price tag down to $100 per pound. Helping push this goal forward is SpaceX's attempts to make <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-falcon-9-reusablity-ocean-landing-2015-1">rockets reusable</a>, which would save the hundreds of millions of dollars it costs to build a new rocket for every space-bound launch.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Bryan Versteeg/Mars One Foundation" title_caption="All components of Mars One's settlement are slated to reach their destination by 2021. The hardware includes two living units, two life-support units, a second supply unit and two rovers." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/52a75ea7ecad04b67ba3e540-960/mars-one-colony-2022.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span>Bryan Versteeg/Mars One Foundation</span></p><p class="caption">All components of Mars One's settlement are slated to reach their destination by 2021. The hardware includes two living units, two life-support units, a second supply unit and two rovers.</p></div><p></p></div></div>In addition to the cost, there's <a href="http://www.space.com/24701-how-long-does-it-take-to-get-to-mars.html">the time it takes</a> to send anything to Mars to consider. On average, Earth and Mars are 140 million miles apart. The fastest spacecraft NASA ever launched, the <a href="http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/">New Horizons mission</a>, left Earth in 2006 traveling through space at 36,000 miles per hour. At that pace, it would take a spacecraft 162 days, 5.5 months, to travel 140 million miles.</p>
<p>With limited space for payloads and long periods of space travel, future Mars colonizers will have to make the most of the resources available on Mars.</p>
<p>"We know that Mars has carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen. It has all the elements that we need so we could - in principle - live off the land given sufficient energy and solar energy," Hoffman said. "Maybe set up nuclear reactors or maybe a fusion reactor if we have fusion by that time. That would make a big difference."</p>
<h2>A Recipe For Success</h2>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="BatteryIncluded on Wikimedia Commons" title_caption="A breakdown of the components inside of the MOXIE oxygen-generator." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54ad8d226bb3f7a01aba7179-960/moxie_o2_generator.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Oxygen_ISRU_Experiment#mediaviewer/File:MOXIE_O2_generator.jpg">BatteryIncluded on Wikimedia Commons</a></span></p><p class="caption">A breakdown of the components inside of the MOXIE oxygen-generator.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Hoffman is a principle investigator for an intriguing machine that is scheduled to go to Mars in the next decade aboard NASA's Mars 2020 mission.</p>
<p>Called the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resources Utilization Experiment, or MOXIE, the instrument is designed to convert carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere into oxygen.</p>
<p>If successful, Hoffman and <a href="http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/going-red-planet">his colleagues at MIT</a> hope to design an even larger version of MOXIE that they hope could produce enough oxygen to both supply astronauts on long explorations across the Martian surface and be used to fuel rockets that would return astronauts to Earth.</p>
<p>"Given sufficient energy and sufficient chemicals that we have on Mars we could live off the land. And that will be a giant step in actually living on another planet," Hoffman said.</p>

These Are The 2 Big Hurdles To Setting Up A Mars Colony

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Mars' upper atmosphere has been gradually disappearing for millions of years.</p>
<p>NASA's latest probe, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN), has just started sending back data from the upper atmosphere of Mars, analyzing it's makeup of hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen, and how these molecules are changing over time in the planet's atmosphere.</p>
<p>The results will teach us why Mars' atmosphere is so thin compared to Earth's and why what was once a planet that could have sustained life is now so cold, dry, and barren.</p>
<p>MAVEN went into orbit around Mars on Sep. 21 and in its three weeks around the planet, the spacecraft has already given NASA researchers an unprecedented look at the Martian atmosphere. Our first taste of the results has just come back, NASA scientists announced at a press conference on Oct. 14.</p>
<p>Today, Mars' atmosphere is pretty thin. But early on in the planet's life, scientists suspect that Mars had a thicker atmosphere, higher surface temperatures, and therefore could harbor liquid water and possibly life. But something happened starting about 3.7 million years ago, that's left Mars with the atmosphere it has today.</p>
<p>Why the Red Planet's atmosphere has whittled away to almost nothing is a mystery that the Maven team is trying to solve by looking at how water and carbon dioxide molecules disassociate into their individual hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon atomic components.</p>
<p>Some of these atoms escape the Martian atmosphere, and so by looking at their abundance in the lower and upper atmosphere - and how that changes with time - scientists can get a better idea of what's causing these elements to separate from their parent molecules and escape into space. </p>
<h2>Hydrogen</h2>
<p>"This is the best picture ever made of atomic hydrogen in the extended upper atmosphere of Mars," Mike Chaffin, MAVEN Remote Sensing Team member at the University of Colorado, Boulder, said during the <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/maven-early-results-telecon/#.VD1zIOdrlz8">NASA press conference</a>. "It's an important measurement to make because the hydrogen we're looking at here comes from water lower down in the atmosphere."</p>
<p>This water has broken apart into its atomic components, hydrogen and oxygen, and once hydrogen reaches the upper atmosphere of Mars it escapes into space because it is extremely light and so is weakly bound by Mars' gravity. It's escape process like these that remove water from Mars, Chaffin explained, and may have "dominated the history of Martian climate change."</p>
<p>The hydrogen slipping away from the planet is shown by the bright white band around the red circle, which marks the outline of Mars. The band is bright because the hydrogen atoms are reflecting the sunlight that is shining on that half of Mars during daytime.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<h2>Carbon</h2>
<p>Carbon is heavier than hydrogen and so is located closer to the surface as shown in the image below. Carbon dioxide is the most abundant molecule in the Martian atmosphere and, because it is a greenhouse gas, may have established conditions on early Mars for liquid water.</p>
<p>This image is not direct evidence of carbon escaping into the atmosphere. However, "this image gives us confidence that we will measure escape of atomic carbon during the first few months of the mission," Chaffin said.</p>
<p>Again, the red circle outlines the planet Mars and you can see the bright streak of carbon atoms reflecting sunlight in Mars' upper atmosphere.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<h2>Oxygen</h2>
<p>"This is the first image ever, that clearly shows the high energy oxygen atmosphere extending away from Mars," said Justin Deighan, MAVEN Remote Sensing Team member at the University of Colorado, Boulder during the same <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/maven-early-results-telecon/#.VD1zIOdrlz8">NASA Telecon earlier today</a>.</p>
<p>Oxygen is also a heavy element and is therefore more strongly bound by Mars's gravity. However, chemical interactions between light particles and oxygen atoms in the atmosphere can heat oxygen atoms up to the point where they have enough energy to rise to the upper atmosphere and escape into space.</p>
<p>Most of the oxygen shown in this image is cold oxygen, but the fuzzy part of the image on the list portion of the planet is hot oxygen that is escaping into space. Oxygen is perhaps the most useful element to study because it is produce from the breakdown of both carbon dioxide and water.</p>
<p>"We need to understand it for a complete story of atmospheric escape from Mars," Deighan said.</p>
<p>You can see the large abundance of oxygen in light green here. Most of it is contained in the upper atmosphere of Mars, but some of it - the hot oxygen - is escaping into space, indicated by the fuzzy band outlining the planet.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<h2>Putting it all together</h2>
<p>When you put all three of these images together: "You can see how MAVEN has given us a simultaneous global picture of all the atomic products of carbon dioxide and water, which allows us to begin to measure the escape rates from the upper atmosphere and do the <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> that Maven came to do," Deighan said.</p>
<p>Ultimately, NASA scientists can extrapolate these escape rates back in time to when Mars had a more robust atmosphere and hopefully identify the primary culprits that stripped the atmosphere down to the bare bones we see today.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<h2>Map of ozone abundance</h2>
<p>The spacecraft also captured a map of the abundance of ozone across the planet. On Earth, ozone is mainly destroyed by man-made chemicals, but on Mars, a combination of sunlight and water vapor are what eat it away. Therefore, ozone indicates where water is on the surface and also tells scientists something about the chemical reactions going on in the lower atmosphere.</p>
<p>"This is actually important for understanding the loss of water from Mars because it's those same reactions that begin the process of breaking water down into atomic hydrogen and transporting it into the upper atmosphere where it can escape into space," Deighan said.</p>
<p>Cooler regions on the map indicate weaker ozone layers. The poles have the most abundant ozone because they receive the least sunlight.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Combining the data from ozone abundance maps like the one shown above, and images of atomic hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen will give scientists a look at what's going both in the lower Martian atmosphere, where chemical reactions breakdown molecules, and the upper Martian atmosphere where those individual atoms escape into space.</p>
<p>"Making these connections will allow us to understand how the mars atmosphere is being lost today and by extension how much has been lost over the history of the solar system," Deighan said.</p>
<p>Shortly after Maven achieved orbit there was a fortuitous solar flare event that launched solar energetic particles toward the planet. These energetic particles are believed to be one cause of atmospheric loss, catapulting these important atmospheric particles away from the planet.</p>
<p>Maven has another instrument on board that allows it to track and measure these powerful events, so that scientists can ultimately see how much of an impact these solar particles have on atmospheric loss.</p>
<p>"What we're seeing so far is really just a tantalizing teaser of what's to come," said Bruce Jakosky who is the MAVEN Principal Investigator and at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at University of Colorado, Boulder.</p>

The Newest NASA Mars Mission Is Already Unraveling The Mystery Of Mars' Missing Atmosphere

<p><div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"></div><p class="source"><keyword id="68053" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="AFP">AFP</keyword></p><p class="caption">Photo taken On February 2, 2009 shows ancient cedar trees at The Baruk Natural Reserve in Lebanon's Shouf Mountains.</p></div>A mystery wave of cosmic <keyword id="31246" type="TECHNOLOGY" weightage="60" keywordseo="radiation">radiation</keyword> that smashed into Earth in the eighth century may have come from two black holes that collided, a study published in a British journal on Monday says.</p>
<p>Clues for the strange event were unearthed last year by Japanese astrophysicist Fusa Miyake, who discovered a surge in carbon-14 -- an isotope that derives from high-energy radiation -- in the rings of ancient cedar trees.</p>
<p>Dating of the trees showed that the burst struck the Earth in either 774 or 775 AD.</p>
<p>But what was the nature of the radiation, and what caused it?</p>
<p>Space scientists lined up the usual suspects only to let them go. There was no evidence that an exploding star, also called a supernova, occurred at that time, they found.</p>
<p>The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a record in Old English, makes a dramatic reference to the appearance of a "red crucifix" seen in the skies after sunset. But that happened in 776 AD, which was too late to tally with the event marked by the tree rings.</p>
<p>Also ruled out was a tantrum by the Sun, which can throw out sizzling cosmic rays or gouts of energy called solar flares.</p>
<p>Writing in Monthly Notices, a journal of Britain's Royal Astronomical Society, German-based scientists Valeri Hambaryan and Ralph Neuhaeuser have come up with a new explanation.</p>
<p>The pair suggest that two black holes collided and then merged, releasing an intense but extremely brief burst of gamma rays.</p>
<p>A collision of neutron stars or "white dwarf" stars (tiny, compact stars near the end of their lives) may also have been the cause, say Hambaryan and Neuhaeuser of the University of Jena's Astrophysics Institute.</p>
<p>Mergers of this kind are often spotted in galaxies other than our own Milky Way, and do not generate visible light.</p>
<p>The event in 774 or 775 AD could only have taken place at least 3,000 light years from here, otherwise the planet would have fried, says the paper.</p>
<p>If their theory is right, this would explain why there is no record of some ultra-brilliant event in the sky, or evidence of any extinction event in Earth's biodiversity at that time.</p>
<p>Astronomers should scour the skies because invisible remnants of the event could well exist today, the paper suggests.</p>
<p>And estimating the risk from a future collision of this kind could be vital.</p>
<p>"If the gamma ray burst had been much closer to the Earth it would have caused significant harm to the biosphere," explains Neuhaeuser.</p>
<p>"But even thousands of light years away, a similar event today could cause havoc with the sensitive electronic systems that advanced societies have come to depend on. The challenge now is to establish how rare such carbon-14 spikes are, i.e. how often such radiation bursts hit the Earth.</p>
<p>"In the last 3,000 years, the maximum age of trees alive today, only one such event appears to have taken place."</p>
<div class="nc_footer">
<p>Copyright (2013) AFP. All rights reserved.</p>
</div>
<p></p>

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<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&amp;search_source=search_form&amp;version=llv1&amp;anyorall=all&amp;safesearch=1&amp;searchterm=earth+magnetic+field&amp;search_group=&amp;orient=&amp;search_cat=&amp;searchtermx=&amp;photographer_name=&amp;people_gender=&amp;people_age=&amp;people_ethnicity=&amp;people_number=&amp;commercial_ok=&amp;color=&amp;show_color_wheel=1#id=95349190&amp;src=0cfa086d0a7c187d50bc61aac8aee4b0-1-4">Shutterstock</a></span></p><p class="caption">Magnetic poles surrounding the globe.</p></div><p></p></div></div>The Earth's magnetic field protects life on Earth, shielding it from damaging radiation and moderating our climate.</p>
<p>So the idea that it could completely flip around, or collapse altogether, should cause us to worry, right?</p>
<p>Well, yes and no.</p>
<p><strong>Magnetosphere Basics</strong></p>
<p>The result of electrical currents generated deep within the Earth through dynamic action, the magnetosphere is a fluid force that is constantly changing in strength and orientation.</p>
<p><strong>The Center of the Earth</strong></p>
<p>The very heart of our planet is a <a href="http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/encyclopedia/core/?ar_a=1" target="_blank">solid inner core</a> of mostly iron that is about the size of the moon.</p>
<p>It is so hot (9000°F to 13000°F or about 5000°C to 7200°C) that its temperature equals that of the "surface" of the sun, but it remains solid because of the combined pressure of everything above it being pulled toward it by gravity.</p>
<p>Surrounding this solid inner core is a second layer made primarily of an iron-nickel alloy. Nearly as hot (7200°F to 9000°F or about 4000°C to 5000°C) but under a bit less pressure, this <a href="http://www.livescience.com/29054-earth-core-hotter.html" target="_blank">outer core</a> is liquid.</p>
<p>Around the outer core is a hot layer of dense rock, called the mantle, that "<a href="http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/education/vwlessons/lessons/Earths_layers/Earths_layers6.html" target="_blank">flows like asphalt under a heavy weight</a>." At temperatures ranging from 1600°F (871°C), where it meets the Earth's crust, to 4000°F (2204°C), where it meets the outer core, it is relatively cool compared to its deeper, denser neighbors.</p>
<p><strong>Electrical Currents</strong></p>
<p>The disparity in temperature between the inner core and the mantle causes the Earth to become a giant magnet. As was <a href="http://www.livescience.com/29054-earth-core-hotter.html" target="_blank">recently explained</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There needs to be a 2,700-degree F (1,500C) difference between the inner core and the mantle to spur "thermal movements" that - along with Earth's spin - create the magnetic field.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These thermal movements of flowing liquid induce <a href="http://geomag.nrcan.gc.ca/mag_fld/fld-eng.php" target="_blank">electrical currents that in turn create the magnetosphere</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For magnetic field generation to occur several conditions must be met: 1. there must be a conducting fluid; 2. there must be enough energy to cause the fluid to move with sufficient speed and with the appropriate flow pattern; 3. there must be a "seed" magnetic field… There is sufficient energy [in the outer core] to drive convection, and… coupled with the Earth's rotation, produce the appropriate flow pattern… The existing field [of the Sun] acts as the seed field. As a stream of molten iron passes through the existing magnetic field [of the Sun], an electric current is generated… The newly created electric field will in turn create a magnetic field…<em><br /></em></p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>The Magnetic Field in Flux</strong></p>
<p>Given the fluidity of the system, it stands to reason that the magnetic field is not an immovable constant, but <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/29dec_magneticfield.html" target="_blank">changes in its strength, orientation and polarity</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Orientation</strong></p>
<p>Since it was first pinpointed in 1831 by James Ross, the magnetic north pole has moved more than 600 miles, and in recent years, this change has accelerated from "<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012-poleReversal.html" target="_blank">an average speed of 10 km per year . . . to 40 km per yea</a>r." It is expected to move from its current location in North America to Asia within a few decades.</p>
<p><strong>Waning Strength</strong></p>
<p>Over the last 200 years, the magnetic field has "<a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/are-the-earths-poles-about-the-flip/" target="_blank">weakened by about 15 percent.</a>" Since the magnetic field shields the Earth's surface from some amount of radiation, "<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012-poleReversal.html" target="_blank">flares and coronal mass ejections from the sun</a>," were the field to disappear entirely, there could be <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2545465/Forget-global-warming-worry-MAGNETOSPHERE-Earths-magnetic-field-collapsing-affect-climate-wipe-power-grids.html" target="_blank">dramatic consequences</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Radiation at ground level would increase . . . causing more deaths from cancer . . . but only slightly . . . . Electric grid collapse from severe solar storms is a major risk . . . [and] the Earth's climate could also change . . . . Some speculative studies have suggested that as the Earth's magnetic field weakens we could see an increase in cloud coverage in the troposphere and an increase in the polar ozone holes . . . .</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>Pole Reversal</strong></p>
<p>Part of the natural order, over the last 20 million years, the poles have reversed, on average, every 200,000-300,000 years. <em>However, </em>we are long overdue for a long-term reversal, since the last one occurred about 780,000 years ago.</p>
<p>Although scientists aren't certain, some believe that the pole flip is related to the convection within the core, where "<a href="http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/Phys-earth-core.html" target="_blank">lighter components, like oxygen, sulfur, and silicon . . . rise toward the core-mantle boundary (CMB).</a>" Accumulating like sediment on the floor of the ocean, these "fall" upward from the core onto the surface of the mantle, which is uneven like the topography of the Earth's surface. When enough sediment collects, it tumbles like an avalanche, into the outer core, thereby cooling it. Some theorize that "<a href="http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/Phys-earth-core.html" target="_blank">truly massive CMB avalanches could disrupt the geodynamo and cause Earth's dipole [two-poled magnetic] field to collapse</a>."</p>
<p><strong>Slow Reversals</strong></p>
<p>Discerned from magnetic signatures found on rocks and sediments, scientists today know that the poles routinely switch places. For those reversals that last 200,000 years or more, the change occurs over a<a href="http://www.livescience.com/18426-earth-magnetic-poles-flip.html" target="_blank">1,000 to 10,000 year-period</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It's not a sudden flip, but a slow process, during which the field strength becomes weak, very probably the field becomes more complex and might show more than two poles for a while, and then builds up in strength and aligns in the opposite direction.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Given the field's waning strength over the last couple of centuries, some scientists believe we are approaching another long-term flip. Many downplay the risk to humans, noting that the magnetosphere rarely disappears, so life on Earth remains largely protected during the reversal.</p>
<p>However, if the magnetic field were to significantly weaken, we could (potentially) be in trouble. In fact, some researchers have opined that there is "<a href="http://www.livescience.com/18426-earth-magnetic-poles-flip.html" target="_blank">a direct link between the demise of the Neanderthals . . . and a significant decrease of the geomagnetic field intensity that occurred exactly at the same period</a>."</p>
<p><strong>Rapid Reversals</strong></p>
<p>In recent years, scientists have found evidence that magnetic pole shifts can occur very quickly, although it is not clear if they typically result in complete reversals.</p>
<p>In the late 1960s near the village of Laschamp in the Massif-Central in France, scientists found incomplete evidence that led them to believe an extremely rapid, short-term magnetic reversal had occurred a mere 41,000 years ago (about the time the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/jun/02/why-did-neanderthals-die-out" target="_blank">Neanderthal disappeared from Europe</a>).</p>
<p>Other evidence of a rapid pole shift was discovered in 1995 in hardened lava in Steens Mountain, Oregon. There, magnetic crystals in the rocks indicated a super-fast magnetic shift had occurred, one in which the poles moved "<a href="http://phys.org/news202971192.html" target="_blank">over 10,000 times faster than normal, at six degrees a day</a>."</p>
<p>At that breakneck rate, a complete magnetic shift could occur in <em>months</em>, rather than thousands of years, so many scientists were understandably skeptical - that is until further evidence of short-term flips was found in 2010 in Battle Mountain, Nevada, where it was revealed that the "<a href="http://phys.org/news202971192.html" target="_blank">magnetic field moved by 53 degrees in a single year.</a>"</p>
<p>Even more recently, in 2012, scientists re-visited the Laschamp event, this time examining sediment cores from the Black Sea as well as other data from the South Pacific and North Atlantic, and their <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121016084936.htm" target="_blank">findings were remarkable</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The field geometry of reversed polarity, with field lines pointing into the opposite direction when compared to today's configuration, last for only about 440 years, and it was associated with a field strength that was only one quarter of today's field. . . . During this period, the field was even weaker, with only 5% of today's field strength. As a consequence, Earth nearly completely lost its protection shield against hard cosmic rays, leading to a significantly increased radiation exposure.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Although there is no direct evidence of a causal relationship, the Black Sea sediment cores also revealed that two other "<a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121016084936.htm" target="_blank">extreme scenarios</a>" occurred at about the same time:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Numerous abrupt climate changes during the last ice age [were happening along with] . . . the largest volcanic eruption on the Northern hemisphere in the past 100,000 years . . . near Naples, Italy . . . [and the] short and fast reversal of the Earth's magnetic field.</p>
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