Mars lander reveals new details about the Red Planet's strange magnetic field

The magnetic field in one zone on Mars is about 10 times stronger than scientists expected, and it's changing rapidly.

Mars lander reveals new details about the Red Planet's strange magnetic field : Read more

"Billions of years ago, Mars used to have a global magnetic field, but it shut down for reasons that are still unknown, about 4 billion years ago, leaving the atmosphere unshielded to radiation and causing it to bleed over time into space. Any residual fields are likely coming from older rocks buried several feet or miles underneath the planet's surface, these new results from InSight suggest."

Interesting model interpretation. *shut down for reasons that are still unknown*, an important concept. Are there measurements of Mars primordial magnetic field 4E+9 years ago, e.g. Martian meteorites on Earth? Is there reliable measured decay rate of the field over that time span? Early Mars, warm and wet with a dense atmosphere that is lost also faced the Faint Young Sun problem. Questions about the origin, primordial strength, decay rate, and present strength of Mars magnetic field also goes to how old is the planet in the solar system too.
 

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