This is more of the detail in regards to this find:

Espley and his colleagues describe the event as a tide that washed over the Martian magnetosphere. Comet Siding Spring’s tail has a magnetosphere due to its interactions with the solar wind. As the comet is heated by the sun, plasma is generated, which interacts in turn with the solar wind, creating a magnetosphere. And like a tide, the effects were subtle at first, and the event played out over several hours as the comet passed by the planet.

Could you imagine seeing that?  What an incredible find.  What do you think this will tell us about atmospheres and how they work with other dynamics in local solar systems?

And here is a cool video with more on the atmosphere of Mars and its history:

There is plenty of evidence that Mars at one time had an atmosphere that allowed water to flow on its surface. What happened to it? To find out, NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft is flying high above the Red Planet with a battery of sensors. While previous Mars orbiters have peered down at the planet’s surface, MAVEN is spending part of its time gazing at the stars, looking for subtle changes in their color as they dip through the limb of Mars and set below the horizon. Such stellar occultations reveal what the atmosphere is made of, and how its composition varies with altitude. MAVEN’s observations are providing the most detailed picture of the Mars upper atmosphere to date, helping scientists understand how Mars turned from a warm and wet planet in its youth, into the forbidding desert that we see today.

We hope you enjoy the video and keep watching for updates on the red planet as they come in.

thanks to universetoday.com for the great info

thanks to NASA for the pic