While MAVEN May Be Lost/Dead Stick -- Its Older Data Is Still Offering Us New Martian Insights...

This is excellent -- file it under the heading of unexpected. . . new exo-planetary / space science learnings, from older spacecraft data -- being re-mined.

This is NASA -- multiple efficiencies; functioning on multiple levels. We now know that Mars experiences the same Zwan-Wolf effect we see in our own Earth-bound magnetosphere. Here's all of that, from NASA:

. . .In December 2023, scientists looking at Mars data stumbled across something completely unexpected — observations of an atmospheric effect never before seen in the Red Planet’s atmosphere. Using instruments aboard NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) mission, scientists identified a phenomenon known to occur in Earth’s magnetosphere, where charged particles are squeezed like toothpaste coming out of a tube along magnetic structures called flux tubes. This so-called Zwan-Wolf effect aids in the deflection of solar wind around Earth and has been observed and studied there for decades. Now, a new study published in Nature Communications provides the first comprehensive observations of the same effect in Mars’ atmosphere. . . .

Understanding the Zwan-Wolf effect at Mars will further our understanding of how space weather affects the planet and provides new insight into how this effect might occur at similar unmagnetized bodies, such as Venus and Saturn’s moon Titan. Observations like this also highlight the importance of knowing how large space weather events can lead to changes in the environment at and around the Red Planet and potentially affect assets on or near Mars.

“Knowing how space weather interacts with Mars is essential,” said Shannon Curry, the principal investigator of MAVEN and research scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder. “The MAVEN team continues making new discoveries with our datasets and finding these links between our host star and the Red Planet. . . .”

[As a reminder, the] MAVEN spacecraft, in orbit around Mars, experienced a loss of signal with ground stations on Earth on Dec. 6, 2025. In Feb. 2026, NASA launched an anomaly review board to assess the probable current state of the spacecraft and the likelihood of its recovery. . . .

And so, even well after loss of signal, it turns out the MAVEN's data is still teaching us things we never knew -- about Barsoom. Onward -- but I doubt MAVEN will ever phone home again. She is lost to the stars, now. Sigh.

नमस्ते