A silent, decade-long vigil over the Martian sky has been broken. One of NASA's most reliable eyes in the cosmos, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) orbiter, has suddenly gone dark. After years of transmitting groundbreaking data about the Red Planet's vanishing atmosphere, the veteran spacecraft is now adrift, having been struck by an 'unknown anomaly' that severed its communication with Earth on Dec. 6.
This loss of contact with NASA's Deep Space Network is not just a technical hiccup; it's the momentary silencing of a pivotal mission that has fundamentally changed our understanding of how Mars lost its life-sustaining blanket of air.
