NASA celebrates 1000 days in orbit around Mars

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) celebrated 1000 days since the launch of their mission to explore Mars’ climate history on Saturday.

#MAVEN’s first 1,000 Earth days in orbit at #Mars: https://t.co/wSk55twnIV Check out the top ten discoveries to-date! pic.twitter.com/pmiemKrotI

— NASA's MAVEN Mission (@MAVEN2Mars) June 16, 2017

The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission (MAVEN) was officially launched in November 2013 and its orbit insertion began in September 2014.

The mission is to explore Mars’ climate history and shed light on how the sun stripped the Red Planet of most of its atmosphere, turning a planet once possibly habitable to microbial life into a barren desert world.

#ICYMI: @MAVEN2Mars has orbited Mars for 1,000 Earth days exploring the upper atmosphere of the Red Planet: https://t.co/2T52tR71UN pic.twitter.com/P4s8zBYNDR

— NASA (@NASA) June 17, 2017

In celebration of MAVEN reaching 1000 days in orbit, NASA released a list of the top 10 discoveries from the mission so far.

Here are some of most fascinating discoveries.

• The first direct observations of a layer of metal ions in the Martian ionosphere, resulting from incoming interplanetary dust hitting the atmosphere.
• The identification of two new types of aurora, termed “diffuse” and “proton” aurora. Unlike how we think of most aurorae on Earth, these aurorae are unrelated to either a global or local magnetic field.
• The rate at which the sun and the solar wind are stripping gas from the top of the atmosphere to space today, along with details of the removal process.
• Mars’ atmosphere has been stripped away by the sun and the solar wind over time, changing the climate from a warmer and wetter environment to the cold, dry climate that is exhibited today.

In addition to some of the biggest discoveries, here are some pictures of the Red Planet, courtesy of NASA.

Maven will continue its observations and is now observing a second Martian year, looking at the ways that the seasonal cycles and the solar cycle affect the system.

For more information about MAVEN, click here.