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>>INTERVIEWER: Last November, NASA launched a new mission to Mars to investigate the mystery

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of how it became the red planet and how it may have looked in the past.

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Now, that mission is about to arrive, and here joining us from NASA's Goddard

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Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland is Planetary Science

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Division Director Dr. Jim Green. Thank you for joining us, Dr. Green.

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>>JIM: Thank you very much, Claire. >>INTERVIEWER: After nearly a year-long journey, MAVEN is finally

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arriving at Mars. Can you tell us about the MAVEN mission entering Mars'

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atmosphere? >>JIM: Well this is an incredibly exciting time, as you say

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in November of last year, we had a perfect launch for

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MAVEN. The rocket was put on the exact trajectory

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we needed. And now we're on Mars' doorstep.

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And Sunday night, we'll skew it, we'll fire the rockets

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After 33 minutes, we hope Mars' gravity will take

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over and put MAVEN into orbit.

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>>INTERVIEWER: And what will MAVEN do as it orbits Mars?  >>JIM:  Well MAVEN is designed

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to look at the interaction of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere with the solar wind.

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We believe the solar wind has been very extensive over

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many billions of years and has perhaps stripped away

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what we believe is the oceans and atmospheres, and made it

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much more dry and arid like it is today.

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>>INTERVIEWER: What else is NASA doing to better understand Mars, and what are

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our plans for the future? >>JIM: Well in addition to MAVEN,

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we're planning two other missions coming up. One is a

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lander that will look at how active seismicly

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Mars is. And the next one is in

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2020. It's a rover similar to Curiosity.

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>>INTERVIEWER: How does studying the red planet's evolution help us understand

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the formation of other planets, including Earth? >>JIM: Well,

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way in the past, Mars was much more Earth-like. And some sort

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of climate change occurred, where it lost its water,

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lost its atmosphere. And we want to understand those processes, because

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what happened on Mars could happen here on Earth. And so

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the study of terrestrial planets and their evolution is incredibly important

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for us. >>INTERVIEWER: Where can we learn more?

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>>JIM: To learn more, go to NASA.gov/MAVEN.

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>>INTERVIEWER: Great, Dr. Green, thank you for joining us.

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>>JIM: My pleasure, thank you Claire.

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