Nasa has given the green light to a $438 million (£275 million) mission to Mars aimed at investigating the mystery of how the 'red planet' lost its atmosphere.

The US space agency gave the approval on Monday for "the development and 2013 launch of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (Maven) mission," noting that the project may also show Mars' history of supporting life.

"A better understanding of the upper atmosphere and the role that escape to space has played is required to plug a major hole in our understanding of Mars," said Maven's lead investigator Bruce Jakosky of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

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