Mars lacks Earth’s protective global magnetic field, and a 2026 Boston University-led study revealed one consequence: solar-wind shear generates enormous plasma waves that tear clouds of atmospheric ions into space, with instantaneous fluxes 10–100 times greater than typical steady escape channels. Scientists think such events may have contributed to Mars’s transformation from a wetter, potentially habitable world into today’s frozen desert.

Joint MAVEN and Tianwen-1 observations identify Kelvin-Helmholtz wave packets as a bursty route by which oxygen-bearing ions escape the Martian atmosphere. The post Mars lacks Earth’s protective global magnetic field, and a 2026 Boston University-led study revealed one consequence: solar-wind shear generates enormous plasma waves that tear clouds of atmospheric ions into space, with instantaneous…