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
Reducing atmosphere billion years of age—was comparable to that of present-day lava. This observation implies that Hadean atmospheric oxygen levels were similar to those of today. The results do not, however, run contrary to existing theories on life’s journey from anaerobic to aerobic organisms. The results quantify the nature of gas molecules containing carbon, hydrogen, and sulphur in the earliest atmosphere, but they shed no light on the much later rise of free oxygen in the air. Although a hard vacuum, interplanetary space is reducing, because solar wind consists mostly of hydrogen plasma. The Moon is directly exposed to solar wind, such