The oxgyen atoms were establish in the Martian higher atmosphere - recognized as the mesosphere - and the detection could help astronomers identify how gases escaped from the Red Planet extended ago. While this is wonderful exciting for our understanding of Mars - humanity’s potential latest home - the researchers establish only half the amount of oxygen they predictable, but this could be the effect of variation in the atmosphere.
The previous time atomic oxygen was observed in the Martian atmosphere was throughout the Viking and Mariner missions of the 1970s. So why such a long gap? Well, there’s actually one thing to blame: Earth’s blue skies.
"Atomic oxygen in the Martian atmosphere is notoriously hard to measure," said SOFIA plan scientist, Pamela Marcum. "To observe the far-infrared wavelengths wanted to detect atomic oxygen, researchers must be above the best part of Earth’s atmosphere and use very sensitive instruments, in this case a spectrometer. SOFIA provide both capabilities."
Yup, researchers have been at war with Earth’s skies for decades currently, because it’s dense and moist enough to create it extremely difficult to precisely see the Universe lying beyond it. So, to conquer this problem, researchers have implement a bunch of workarounds (like creation fake stars with giant lasers), which is where SOFIA come in.
For the uninitiated, SOFIA is mostly a giant aeroplane - a Boeing 747SP jetliner - with a large, 254-cm (100-inch) diameter telescope on it that can soar above the majority of Earth’s atmosphere to provide a obvious picture.
Having such a high vantage point, in adding to specialised gear that’s designed to ignore Earth’s atmosphere, enable the team to create their calculations.
In additional words, it looks like we have to wait for the filled results. In the meantime, get keyed up about the highly speculative alternative of terraforming the Red Planet:
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