Announcing "key science findings" about the MAVEN mission to study the atmosphere of Mars, NASA officials quoted Bob Dylan Thursday, saying "The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind."

At a press conference in Washington, DC, on Thursday, officials said solar winds appear to strip Mars' atmosphere, causing it to become less dense over time.

Those solar winds appear to have played a key role in the transition of the red planet’s climate, from a warm and wet environment that might have supported life, to the cold, dry planet it is today.

Using data from NASA's MAVEN mission, researchers determined the rate at which the Martian atmosphere is currently losing gas to space as a result of the solar winds. They found that solar winds strip away gas at a rate of approximately 100 grams every second. They also found that the erosion of Mars' atmosphere increases significantly during solar storms.

NASA also said that it appears that major solar storms were more frequent in the early history of the solar system, meaning they likely took a greater toll on Mars billions of years ago.

John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator for the NASA Science Mission Directorate in Washington, said in a statement that it appears Mars once had a thick atmosphere that was warm enough to support water, a "key ingredient and medium for life as we currently know it."

The MAVEN mission is dedicated to investigating the planet's atmosphere to help "understand dramatic climate change on the red planet."

Scientists believe that, billions of years ago, Mars' atmosphere was denser than it is now.

If it was indeed more similar to Earth's atmosphere, the conditions on Mars would have allowed for large bodies of water on its surface, and, possibly, life.

But then the Martian atmosphere changed dramatically.

Today, it is about 100 times thinner than Earth's, and made up of about 96 per cent carbon dioxide, less than two per cent argon, less than two per cent nitrogen, and less than one per cent other gases.

Jasper Halekas, MAVEN Solar Wind Ion Analyser, said Thursday that Earth is also struck by the same solar winds, but unlike Mars, it has a strong global magnetic field that largely shields its atmosphere from the impact of the winds.

"Mars has no such global magnetic field, and its upper atmosphere lies completely exposed to the solar wind," he said. As a result, the wind can interact with Mars' upper atmosphere, stripping portions of it away into space, he added.

Daily Planet co-host Dan Riskin said Earth would have suffered a similar fate, had it not been for the planet's magnetic field. 

"Earth has life on it because of a whole bunch of things that happen to go just right," Riskin told CTV News Channel on Thursday.

"You wouldn't think that having a molten, iron core would matter at all, but it does because the fact that we have moving iron underneath our feet, inside the belly of the Earth is what causes our magnetic field and if we didn't have that, we'd be suffering the same fate that Mars is."

NASA launched the MAVEN spacecraft on Nov. 18, 2013, to investigate how fast atmospheric gases are being lost to space today.

Using this information, NASA pieced together a picture of how atmospheric changes affected the planet's climate, geologic, and geochemical conditions over time.

"Understanding what happened to the Mars atmosphere will inform our knowledge of the dynamics and evolution of any planetary atmosphere," Grunsfeld said.

"Learning what can cause changes to a planet's environment, from one that could host microbes at the surface to one that doesn't, is important to know, and is a key question that is being addressed in NASA's journey to Mars."

With files from The Associated Press