NEW DELHI: Solar winds may have led to Mars losing its atmosphere, according to a computer simulation study that confirms the long-held belief that planets need a protective magnetic field to block such harmful radiations in order to stay alive.
While factors such as the existence of a moderately warm, humid atmosphere and liquid water determine whether a planet can harbor life, the study, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, noted that planets’ ability to transmit magnetic fields. generating them is an overlooked aspect.
According to the scientists Arnab Basak and Dibyendu Nandi of the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER) Kolkata, these magnetic fields that envelop planets can act like a protective umbrella, shielding the atmosphere from the sun’s super-fast plasma winds.
On Earth, they said a geo-dynamo mechanism generates the planet’s protective magnetosphere – an invisible shield that stops the solar wind from eroding our atmosphere.
In the current study, the scientists simulated two scenarios of the red planet – one considers a young Mars with its magnetosphere intact, and the other with the planet without this force field.
The simulations showed that the magnetosphere in young Mars may have served as a shield to keep the solar wind from getting too close to the planet’s atmosphere, thus protecting it.
Without an intrinsic magnetosphere, the researchers said the solar wind’s magnetic field may have first draped around and slipped past Mars, carrying parts of the planet’s atmosphere and eventually completely eroding it.
They said the findings confirm the belief that the magnetospheres around planets play a critical role in determining their ability to sustain life.
Alternatively, planets that lose their magnetic field eventually become inhospitable with loss of their atmospheres, the scientists added.
The researchers believe the study has important implications for the search for habitable exoplanets through initiatives such as NASAJames Webb Space Telescope and ISRO‘s ExoWorlds mission.