Atmosphere of Mars and southern hemispheres. Mars's temperature difference greatly influences the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, because warmer air can contain more moisture. This, in turn, affects the production of ozone-destroying hydrogen radicals. In early 2016, Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) detected atomic oxygen in the atmosphere of Mars. This was the first time in forty years it was detected, the last time being the Viking and Mariner missions in the 1970s. Molecular nitrogen (N) is present in the atmosphere at 1.9%. Measurements by various robotic missions, and analyses of Martian meteorites, show that the atmosphere is enriched in
Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere animal, life on land will die off altogether, since by that time most of the remaining carbon in the atmosphere will be sequestered underground, and natural releases of by radioactivity-driven tectonic activity will have continued to slow down. The loss of plant life would also result in the eventual loss of oxygen. Some microbes are capable of photosynthesis at concentrations of of a few parts per million and so the last life forms would probably disappear finally due to the rising temperatures and loss of the atmosphere when the sun becomes a red giant some four billion years from now.