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The “giant waves” recently reported at Mars are waves in plasma at the boundary of the planet’s upper atmosphere—not water waves or surface features. A 2026 study paired observations from NASA’s MAVEN orbiter and China’s Tianwen-1 orbiter to link Kelvin–Helmholtz waves with clouds of escaping atmospheric ions. The finding identifies a possible escape process; it does not establish how much of Mars’s atmosphere the waves have removed over time.
What are the giant waves on Mars?
They are Kelvin–Helmholtz waves: ripples and curls in plasma formed where flows move at different speeds. At Mars, the solar wind—a stream of charged particles from the Sun—passes the slower, heavier ions near the upper-atmosphere boundary. That velocity difference can destabilize the boundary and produce waves.
A wind-over-water analogy can help explain the shear: when two flows move past each other at different speeds, their boundary can roll into wave-like forms. But the Martian waves are a plasma phenomenon involving charged particles, not liquid water. They are also distinct from the visible dunes and ridges on the planet’s surface.
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How did MAVEN and Tianwen-1 observe them?
The two spacecraft supplied complementary measurements. Tianwen-1 observed the incoming solar wind upstream of Mars, while MAVEN measured atmospheric ions escaping closer to the planet. Combining the solar-wind context with measurements of escaping ions helped address a limitation of relying on one spacecraft alone: a single vantage point may not capture both the incoming flow and the response near Mars.
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| Spacecraft | Observation role in the study |
|---|---|
| Tianwen-1 | Measured the incoming solar wind upstream of Mars. |
| MAVEN | Measured atmospheric ions escaping nearer the planet. |
The study, titled “Simultaneous Mars-orbit observations reveal Kelvin-Helmholtz instability–driven bulk atmospheric ion escape,” was published in Science Advances in 2026 (DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aed9072), according to the university-supplied summary carried by ScienceDaily on August 3, 2026.
What did the observations report?
Earth.com’s September 3, 2026 account of the study says the team identified 62 plasma-cloud events during observations from December 2021 through December 2023. It reports that 46 occurred in trains and 16 were isolated. All 62 were observed on the side of Mars where the solar-wind electric field pointed toward the planet; Earth.com reports none on the opposite side.
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For one wave train, Earth.com reports an estimated crest-to-crest distance of about 5,400 miles (8,750 kilometers)—longer than Mars’s diameter. That is an estimate for one reported train, not a universal size for Martian plasma waves.
Earth.com also reports that ion escape inside the observed clouds was 10 to 100 times stronger than in either of two steady escape channels. These relative rates and event counts are values reported by Earth.com from the study; they should not be read as measurements of the planet’s total atmospheric loss.
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What do the waves tell us about Mars losing its atmosphere?
The observations connect Kelvin–Helmholtz waves with enhanced ion escape in the observed plasma clouds. This is evidence for a process by which charged particles from the atmosphere can escape into space, but it does not quantify the waves’ share of Mars’s total atmospheric loss. The study summary says that contribution needs further investigation. Earth.com notes that estimates are also limited by unknown cloud lifetimes and assumptions about cloud shape.
Chi Zhang, a Boston University research scientist, said future work will identify conditions that favor the formation and growth of the waves and determine how much they contribute to atmospheric escape. That distinction matters: seeing a mechanism operate and measuring its importance over geological time are different scientific questions.
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What happens after MAVEN’s mission ended?
NASA declared MAVEN’s mission ended on June 3, 2026, after losing contact with the spacecraft on December 6, 2025. NASA says MAVEN had spent more than 11 years in orbit around Mars. Its mission status and history are described on NASA’s MAVEN mission page.
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