Yes but planets can lose gas to space via thermal escape, at very high rates depending on the temperature. There is also photochemical reactions caused by UV rays that can also drive atmospheric escape, so this planet could have a strong magnetic field and still have no atmosphere, especially if it is this close to its host star, a relatively active red dwarf at that.

I don’t think they would have sent this technolgoy demosntration if they thought flight on Mars was a dead end lol. Despite the air being less than 1/50 the density of air on Earth Mars has lower gravity and heavier air molecules at least helping to partially offset the disadvantage of the thin air. Aerial surveillance is a powerful tool for Mars exploration and could be used to explore large regions on the surface and to sample the atmosphere.

A: The blades have to spin around 2500 rpm in order for it lift off. B: the blades are very wide for a 1.8 kg drone, in order to increase lift. Bonus fact: In 2027 NASA is sending a 400 kg quadcopter to Saturn's Moon Titan, in order to study prebiotic chemistry and the worlds potential habitability. Titan is perhaps the best world for powered flight, with its comparatively low gravity (1/7th of Earth) and dense atmosphere (4x denser than Earth's).

The only time Mars has a blue sky is when the image is in false color in order for scientists to see how rocks would look like in Earthlike lighting. Mars atmosphere always has at least some high altitude dust in it that makes the atmosphere at the very least a kind of light tan. On average the atmosphere is very dusty though so it tends to look almost the color of rust.

I believe it to be high ice clouds.

Life on Europa and/or Enceladus was likely a second abiogenesis, the distances are just too vast for life to be seeded, even Mars there is something like a 1/10,000 chance if I remember, all three are just too far away, and either way, there is a pretty decent chance would be able to tell if the life we found came from Earth, with chirality and stuff like that.

https://lasp.colorado.edu/home/maven/the-solar-wind-and-its-interaction-with-mars-ionosphere/ and for more in depth https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/goddard/2020/mars-electric-currents. It appears the link you sent does list proton emission as a source of radiation, and that subatomic particles emitted by the Sun do reach the surface, though most are stopped by the atmosphere through processes linked above.

Which would be wrong though. Density wise the Martian atmosphere is closer to 2% the density it is on Earth, but wind would still exert roughly 1/9 the force it would here on Earth, not counting low gravity. A 60 mph wind on Mars (fastest average windspeed in a dust storm) would feel like a 7 mph wind on Earth, and could pick up things similar to a 20 mph wind because of the lower gravity. Still probably not enough to pick up a metal tube filled with rock though.

You got a source for that? Mars has an ionosphere and magnetopause surrounding it, charged particles can’t get past it, and if they do, they still have the rest of the atmosphere to go through.

The study is referring to alien life, not anything from Earth. I don't think scientists or anyone else besides sci-fi writers care if humans could life on a planet orbiting on red dwarf, you have to have the tech to get there first, and then again, why would you want to go there?

The solar wind doesn't reach the surface on Mars, I believe you are thinking of UV radiation from the Sun, which goes straight through the atmosphere outside of dust storm season and would grill any microbes that aren't at least a meter below the surface.

I don't know about that, many of those stars in the photo are larger blue hued stars, which may not be conducive to the formation of planets. And for another, there is only one Mars in the solar system, and since we lack data on all other planets besides the ones in our systems, its best to assume that most stars only have one Mars type planet (desert, subsurface water ice, former ocean etc). Red dwarves (stars that are most likely to form planets of low mass) are pretty much invisible in this picture, due to their faintness.

True, but because of Mar's lower gravity its less likely to keep any of those volatiles, and any that do stay are likely to freeze in to the polar caps and crust. Anyway you slice it making Mars ... less Mars is going to be quite hard.

It does, but because Earth is larger planet, and has active recycling processes such as plate tectonics that Mars does not currently have. So while we do lose different gases to space throughout time it is replenished. Though fast forward a billion years from now, when the Sun emits roughly 10% more energy, the Earth will be hot enough that water will be able to rise from the surface directly to the upper atmosphere, and the process that dried out both Mars and Venus will begin. But that's in a billion years so we have nothing to worry about, at least on that front.

Probably not. Mars doesn't have plate tectonics, and volcanic activity is low. The only forces acting on the planet that are strong enough to cause major erosion are wind loaded with dust, snow (at the poles) and occasionally flowing water, when it does occur. Any cities would still have had remnants around today that we would have seen with orbiters. If you mean intelligent but non tool using, I guess its possible. But Mars was only "not a desert" for about a billion years before becoming something pretty close to its modern self. Complex life on Earth took about 3 billion years to evolve. Any life on Mars is likely to microbial for that reason alone.

In simple terms, Mars is a significantly smaller planet than Earth is, with around 10% the mass of Earth. This means that gas escapes much more readily from the planet, outgassing from volcanoes is lower because of a colder interior, asteroids do more damage to the atmosphere etc. Much of the water probably escaped during the first billion years of Mars's existence, when the Sun was far more active than it is today, and the planet was regularly bombarded by solar flares. Water high in the atmosphere would be broken apart by UV rays and its constituents would then be lost to space. Some water condensed into polar ice caps and subsurface reservoirs of ice. Even more water likely seeped into the crust and got chemically bound into rocks. It's a complex answer to a simple question. Scientists even today still don't know exactly were all the water left, but the three primary culprits are loss to space, loss to the deep crust of Mars, and then just freezing in the form of ice near the surface, which includes the water we can readily see on Mars today.

Should be noted that planets with magnetic fields do still experience air loss, Earth actually loses more air to space per second currently than Mars or Venus does, mostly because our atmosphere is composed of lighter air molecules, and our magnetic field heats up the ionosphere dramatically, making it easier for molecules to escape. One other thing about Mars. It has no plate tectonics and very little volcanic outgassing, so no matter were the air is going, whether into the ground or out into space, its not getting replaced like it is on Earth or Venus.

Not a third the size, it has 10% the mass, Mars is ten times smaller than Earth, with about a third of the surface area.

Eh, its a big and ongoing debate whether or not Mars ever had an ocean. There's never been any real "smoking guns" for either side.

Earth has an ozone layer that causes a temperature inversion. Water can't readily reach the upper atmosphere like it can on Mars and Venus. Once Earth's temperature inversion in the middle atmosphere is gone, hydrogen and water vapor will readily escape like it does on Venus, magnetic field or not.

There are many other methods of atmospheric escape a magnetic field can't protect against. UV rays, thermal escape processes, 'freezing' of the atmosphere into a planets crust. A magnetic field isn't the "big factor" in terms of whether not a planet has an atmosphere or not. Look at Venus and Titan, the two other places in the solar system that aren't gas giants and have atmosphere's besides Earth (and Mars). Neither of them have an intrinsic magnetic field and they still have substantial atmospheres.

A magnetic field isn't the primary determination for an atmosphere, Earth is the only terrestrial object with an atmosphere that has a magnetic field. Venus is roughly the same size and has an atmosphere 2 orders of magnitude larger, and lacks any kind of intrinsic magnetosphere. Planetary mass matters much more in regards to atmosphere retention, as well as temperature and atmospheric composition. Titan is another good example, were it lacks both a magnetic field and mass, but the moon is so cold that it can maintain a relatively dense atmosphere.

Jumping the gun a bit there don't you think? Either way its far more likely that if there is present Martian life, its going to be underground so surface trash wont do anything, especially since its such a small amount compared to the size of a planet.

It was a leaky boat three billion years ago when the Sun had a much higher ionizing radiation output and solar flare rate, also why would it’s surface be irradiated if it has a 1 bar atmosphere? With current evidence Mars in theory should have more than a bar of CO2 locked up in its crust, and if we want to make the air breathable we can just import it from some place else.

That’s wrong though. Being “blown away by solar winds” doesn’t mean much when it’s only 100 grams per second. At the current rate it would take the age of the solar system just to remove 1 current Martian atmosphere. A magnetosphere isn’t requirement for an atmosphere, mass is however, and that limits the amount of time air does remain on Mars, to hundreds of millions of years down from billions. Air loss is trivial when it comes to terraforming. Earth loses air all the time too, and currently at a rate twice as fast as Mars (0.7 kg/s compared to 1.4, note that modern Mars loses most of its air from interactions with ultraviolet rays) though it doesn’t matter because Earth has life and active outgassing.