NASA's MAVEN Spacecraft (VIDEO) NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center This video is under embargo. Please login to access this video. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Caption When you navigate with a compass you can orient yourself thanks to Earth's global magnetic field. But on Mars, if you were to walk around with a compass it would haphazardly point from one anomaly to another, because the Red Planet does not possess a global magnetosphere. Scientists think that this lack of a protective magnetic field may have allowed the solar wind to strip away the Martian atmosphere over billions of years, and now NASA's MAVEN spacecraft will study this process in detail with its pair of ring core fluxgate magnetometers. To download the original video, visit http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011200/a011224/. Credit NASA/Goddard/Dan Gallagher Usage Restrictions None License Licensed content Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.