Comet Meteor Shower Put Magnesium and Iron into Martian Atmosphere

The places where the red line on this graph extends higher than the blue line show detection of metals added to the Martian atmosphere from dust particles released by a passing comet on Oct. 19, 2014. The graphed data are from NASA MAVEN spacecraft.

The places where the red line on this graph extends higher than the blue line show detection of metals added to the Martian atmosphere from dust particles released by a passing comet on Oct. 19, 2014. The graphed data are from NASA MAVEN spacecraft.

MarsMars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution MissioN MAVEN