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so NASA is getting ready to launch a new

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mission to Mars and here to talk a

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little bit more about the mission and

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and also you know what they're hoping to

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learn about Mars and maybe what its

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atmosphere looked like several billion

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years ago is dr. Jim Garvin who is going

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to tell us a little bit more about this

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thanks so much for joining us my

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pleasure so tell us when did Mars have

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weather like Earth and what it what did

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it look like a long time ago we think

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billions of years ago perhaps as long

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ago as four billion years ago Mars had a

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climate state with a bigger atmosphere

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that supported surface water rain rivers

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perhaps shallow seas persistent surface

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water unlike the desert of today that

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allowed for a situation for the

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chemistry associated with that to be

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recorded in the rocks but that state of

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Mars is long gone we don't see that

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today from any of the voyages we've made

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to Mars with our robots since the 60s so

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something went wrong something went awry

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Mars behave differently figuring that

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out is central to understanding whether

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Mars could ever have preserved the

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record of past life so tell us a little

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bit about this new Mars mission and what

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kind of science it'll collect so our

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next mission to Mars is called maven

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it's all about interrogating the

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forensic science of the Mars atmosphere

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in reconnaissance mode measuring not

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only the atmosphere that we see today

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but using that atmosphere and it's

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interaction with the particles and

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fields streaming off the Sun to

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understand how it got to be in that

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state what possible pathways did the

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Mars we see today that we can measure

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from maven got it to this state relative

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to that Mars of the past the warm wet

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cloudy rainy river filled Mars that

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we've been seeing at the rock record

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level with curiosity what did that

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mavens all about making that connection

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connecting the dots from the atmosphere

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so tell us why is it so important to

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understand what happened to Mars's

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atmosphere because Mars atmosphere is a

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critical element in asking whether Mars

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ever could have been alive the

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atmosphere is part of the environment

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that allows conditions that we call

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those that are habitable habitability to

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persist we see in the past recorded in

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minerals and rocks and other things that

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Mars had all the right stuff the right

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conditions chemicals presence of water

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energy systems to potentially have

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sustained the kind of life that we know

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on earth but now it doesn't the

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atmosphere is a record book it's a time

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capsule in a chemistry lab for how Mars

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works today and how it got to be the way

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it is today we need to see that

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atmosphere up close as it interacts with

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the solar wind now the Sun and with

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space space weather and how it might be

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evolving what's it losing to space what

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chemical reactions are ongoing what

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species that we can't really see easily

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are there how do those link back in time

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to that better Mars State so does this

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mean there could have been life on Mars

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at one point we don't know whether there

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was life on Mars but we know the kind of

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question is to look forward to read the

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records of what might have been the

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so-called preservation potential of what

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we would call signs of life bio

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signatures they're recorded in rocks and

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chemicals even in atmospheres we know

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some of the kinds of things to look for

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but we need a better picture of the

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whole atmosphere system the rock system

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even the interior of Mars to be most

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informed on how to ask that question

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because Mars is the first good place to

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ask are we alone at least in the past

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with respect to things like life so we

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got to be smart about asking it's a big

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place it's a big atmosphere even for a