These trippy Martian visuals hold clues to why the planet lost its atmosphere - Inverse

In order to better understand why Mars lost its atmosphere, scientists set out to map Mars' electric currents in the Martian atmosphere that may be responsible for letting the gas in its atmosphere slip away.

Instead, charged particles released from the upper atmosphere of the Sun, known as solar wind, interact with Mars' atmosphere and create an induced magnetosphere, or the area of space that surrounds a planet.

These loops of electric currents connect Mars' upper atmosphere and its induced magnetosphere to the solar wind.

As the ions and electrons of the solar wind smash into Mars' induced magnetic field, they are forced to flow apart due to their opposite electric charge with some ions flowing in one direction while some electrons flow in the other direction.

The currents induced in the solar wind transform the energy of the solar wind into magnetic and electric fields that accelerate the charged particles of Mars' atmosphere, which causes the planet's atmosphere to leak into space.