Latest news with #ShannonCurry
CBS News
02-07-2025
- Science
- CBS News
Some Colorado space jobs and research funding in jeopardy with federal budget cuts under consideration
From Space Force to space research, Colorado is known for its work in the aerospace industry. Now some of that work is in jeopardy after cuts to NASA funding were included in proposed federal budget cuts. NASA's Maven spacecraft NASA Some space researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder said they are concerned about how the proposed cuts could affect them. That includes Shannon Curry, an Associate Professor in Astrophysics and Planetary Sciences. Curry is one of the CU scientists who has been receiving information from NASA's Maven spacecraft, which entered the orbit of Mars in 2014. "The first time you get data down and no one has ever seen it before, it's so exhilarating," Curry said. The Maven mission could be on the chopping block if the federal budget legislation is approved, which Curry says could drastically slow down any progress for a human mission to Mars. The proposed 25% cut to NASA's overall budget comes as President Trump aims to shrink federal spending. "When we found out that Maven might be canceled, we were devastated on a personal and professional level," Curry said. "This has been my life's work." Curry says the impact of the cuts would be felt on American space missions well beyond the ones CU is involved in. "NASA and the U.S. could very well cede leadership to other countries, in particular countries that have made no secret of trying to have more presence there, including China and Russia," Curry said. The proposed funding cuts at CU could also mean job cuts for researchers which leaves Curry and her team to have no clear picture of their own future or their missions. "We've never decommissioned a spacecraft at Mars. So this would be a first, and this is not something anyone wants to do, or frankly, feels prepared to do, on this kind of a timeline," she said. That timeline could mean changes coming as soon as next school year, and it could impact how much money comes into the university and Colorado. "We work hard and are responsible for good paying American jobs. These are the kinds of things that if these missions are canceled, I don't know what a lot of people are going to be doing in the future," Curry said.
LeMonde
10-06-2025
- Science
- LeMonde
How solar wind may have eroded the atmosphere of Mars
Mars specialists had speculated about the existence of this phenomenon for several decades. Expectations for the study led by Shannon Curry, a researcher at the University of Colorado, were therefore high. After accumulating and analyzing more than nine years of data from the Maven probe, which has orbited Mars since 2014, Curry and her team were able for the first time to demonstrate an atmospheric escape process known as "sputtering." This process could explain how Mars lost its atmosphere several billion years ago. The study, published in the journal Science on May 29, helps to further reconstruct the turbulent history of the Red Planet, especially its early years, which continue to intrigue scientists. Mars was not always the cold, desert-like, reddish planet we know today. Examination of its surface indicates the past presence of liquid water, implying much higher temperatures than today's average of -63°C, as well as a much denser atmospheric layer than the current one, whose pressure is only 0.6% that of Earth's.
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
NASA spots sputtering for first time, cracks Mars' lost atmosphere mystery
Mars just gave up one of its oldest secrets — and it took a decade, a spacecraft, and a cosmic cannonball to catch it in the act. For the first time, NASA's MAVEN mission has directly observed a process called sputtering, an elusive atmospheric escape mechanism where energetic charged particles from the solar wind slam into the Martian atmosphere, knocking atoms into space. This violent interaction may be a key reason why Mars lost its thick atmosphere and, with it, the ability to sustain liquid water on its surface. The breakthrough marks a major milestone for MAVEN, a mission under NASA's Mars Exploration Program dedicated to uncovering how the Red Planet lost its atmosphere. While scientists had long suspected the process played a role in the Red Planet's atmospheric erosion, they lacked concrete evidence. 'It's like doing a cannonball in a pool,' said Shannon Curry, principal investigator of MAVEN at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder and lead author of the study in a release. 'The cannonball, in this case, is the heavy ions crashing into the atmosphere really fast and splashing neutral atoms and molecules out.' Previous findings—like the imbalance between lighter and heavier argon isotopes in Mars' atmosphere—offered only indirect clues, pointing to sputtering's fingerprints without capturing the act itself. Since lighter isotopes naturally reside higher in the atmosphere, their scarcity compared to heavier ones strongly suggested they had been knocked away into space. And the only known process capable of selectively removing these lighter isotopes is sputtering. 'It is like we found the ashes from a campfire,' said Curry. 'But we wanted to see the actual fire, in this case sputtering, directly.' Now, using data from three instruments aboard MAVEN—the Solar Wind Ion Analyzer, the Magnetometer, and the Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer—researchers have, for the first time, captured sputtering in action. Additionally, the team needed measurements across the dayside and the nightside of the planet at low altitudes, which takes years to observe. By combining data from three of MAVEN's instruments, scientists created the first detailed map linking sputtered argon to incoming solar wind. The map showed argon atoms high in the Martian atmosphere, precisely where energetic particles had slammed into it—clear, real-time evidence of sputtering in action. Even more striking, the process was occurring at a rate four times higher than expected, with activity intensifying during solar storms. This direct observation confirms that sputtering was a major driver of atmospheric loss during Mars' early years, when the young Sun was far more active. 'These results establish sputtering's role in the loss of Mars' atmosphere and in determining the history of water on Mars,' said Curry. The discovery helps fill a major gap in our understanding of Mars' transformation from a once-habitable planet to the cold, dry world we see today. It also provides critical insight into how planets evolve and what it might take for them to remain habitable. The findings have been published this week in Science Advances.
India Today
30-05-2025
- Science
- India Today
Rare discovery on Mars could finally reveal why the planet died
Mars always had water, but then the planet changed and the water disappeared leaving behind a barren dead what could be one of the biggest findings from Mars, Nasa's Mars Atmosphere Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission has detected an elusive atmospheric escape process called could help answer longstanding questions about the history of water loss on Mars. Mars is believed to have lost the water after its magnetic field disappeared exposing the planet to the solar wind and solar storms. As the atmosphere began to erode, liquid water was no longer stable on the surface, so much of it escaped to are interested in finding out how its once thick atmosphere got stripped away. They think sputtering was behind it. Sputtering, a phenomenon where energetic particles from the solar wind crash into Mars' upper atmosphere and knock atoms into space, may have played a central role."It's like doing a cannonball in a pool," said Shannon Curry, principal investigator of MAVEN. "The heavy ions are the cannonballs, and they splash neutral atoms and molecules out of the atmosphere."While indirect evidence of sputtering existed — particularly in the uneven distribution of argon isotopes in the Martian atmosphere — this is the first time scientists have observed the process a trio of MAVEN instruments, including the Solar Wind Ion Analyzer and Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer, the team collected rare data from both the dayside and nightside of the result: a high-resolution map showing argon being ejected from Mars' atmosphere precisely where solar particles collided with it. This sputtering occurred at a rate four times higher than previously thought, and intensified during solar discovery, published this week in Science Advances, confirms sputtering as a major mechanism behind the atmospheric erosion that led to Mars' dramatic climate shift.'These results establish sputtering's role in the loss of Mars' atmosphere and in determining the history of water on Mars,' said Curry. The findings could significantly reshape our understanding of Mars' past — and its potential to have once supported Reel
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
NASA discovers phenomenon that could have led to water loss on Mars
May 29 (UPI) -- NASA scientists have discovered evidence that could help answer questions surrounding the history of water loss on Mars. The new research comes after a decade of exploration by NASA's MAVEN (Mars Atmospheric Volatile Evolution) mission shows evidence of an escape process known as "sputtering," during which atoms are knocked out of the atmosphere by what are known as "charge particles," NASA said in a release. "It's like doing a cannonball in a pool," Shannon Curry, a principal investigator with the MAVEN mission and a co-author of the research report, said. "The cannonball, in this case, is the heavy ions crashing into the atmosphere really fast and splashing neutral atoms and molecules out." Scientists have an abundance of evidence that water existed on the Martian surface billions of years ago, but they have been trying to find out where it went. Research has shown that when Mars lost its magnetic field, its surface was exposed to solar wind storms that allowed the liquid water to escape into space. But that does not explain why the once-thick Martian atmosphere was almost entirely stripped away. Sputtering, the new report says, could help explain it. "It's like we found the ashes from a campfire," Curry continued. "But we wanted to see the actual fire, in this case sputtering, directly. The team used a series of MAVEN tools to measure several atmospheric factors in both daylight and dark at low altitudes to observe the phenomenon, which took years to complete. "The combination of data from these instruments allowed scientists to make a new kind of map of sputtered argon in relation to the solar wind," the NASA release said. "This map revealed the presence of argon at high altitudes in exact locations that the energetic particles crashed into the atmosphere and splashed out argon, showing sputtering in real time." Researchers determined at least one of the causes for the loss of water on the Martian surface, but they were also able to recreate the conditions that may have made the planet inhabitable billions of years ago.
