Astrophysicist Dimitra Atri from the Blue Marble Institute of Space Sciences has estimated the possible loss of atmosphere by Mars as a result of global cosmic cataclysms. The estimates presented by the scientist make it possible to name the galactic event most dangerous for the gas shell of the Earth. The research preprint is published on the arXiv.org website.
The scientist considered four main scenarios of cosmic impact on the Martian atmosphere: an outbreak of a nearby supernova, a powerful galactic gamma-ray burst, passage through a cloud of interstellar dust, and a solar superflare. The most disastrous for the planetary atmospheres would be the penultimate of these events. It would lead to a loss of about a percent of the gas envelope.
The scientist cited his calculations for Mars, the mass of the gas shell of which is 2.5 by ten to the 16th kilogram. A superflare would reduce its mass by 950 tons, a galactic gamma-ray burst by 14 thousand tons, a particle flux from a supernova (at a distance of 30 parsecs from the planet) by 32 thousand tons, and a passage through a cloud of interstellar dust by 101 billion tons. The above estimates were obtained by the author using numerical simulations using the Monte Carlo method, which assumes the use of the latest data on the structure of the upper layers of the Martian atmosphere, obtained, in particular, by the automatic station MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN), which has been studying the atmosphere of the Red Planet since 2014.