On: Mars likely to have enough oxygen to support life:...

[raducu]

I wonder if it's the solar wind or just the escape velocity vs. the termal escape.

I'm sure in a couple of centuries humans would be able to build superconducting magnets powerful enough to shield Mars from the solar wind (those would double as energy storage as well), but we can't do anything about the fundamental properties of gases and escape velocity.

[cbkeller → raducu]

There's a bit of comparison of the two (thermal vs. non-thermal escape) here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_escape#Thermal_esc... but I don't know the relative proportions on Mars. There have been some recent studies of the xenon isotopic composition of the paleo-Martian atmosphere that might provide a bit more insight, and in particular suggest most of the loss happened early: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X1...