Mars once had vast ocean

William Haskins

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A massive ancient ocean once covered nearly half of the northern hemisphere of Mars making the planet a more promising place for alien life to have gained a foothold, Nasa scientists say.

The huge body of water spread over a fifth of the planet’s surface, as great a portion as the Atlantic covers the Earth, and was a mile deep in places. In total, the ocean held 20 million cubic kilometres of water, or more than is found in the Arctic Ocean, the researchers found.

Unveiled by Nasa on Thursday, the compelling evidence for the primitive ocean adds to an emerging picture of Mars as a warm and wet world in its youth, which trickled with streams, winding river deltas, and long-standing lakes, soon after it formed 4.5bn years ago.

The view of the planet’s ancient history radically re-writes what many scientists believed only a decade ago. Back then, flowing water was widely considered to have been a more erratic presence on Mars, gushing forth only rarely, and never forming long-standing seas and oceans.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/mar/05/nasa-finds-evidence-of-a-vast-ancient-ocean-on-mars
 

Expat-hack

Too much lost generation as a kid!
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Yes, thank you. Very cool stuff. Just uneducated conjecture, but I would not be surprised at all if microbial life is eventually found in the soil. It may be only a matter of time ---billions of years :) ---- before this is Earth's fate too. Time to start setting up camp in distant galaxies.

Sorry. I watched far to much "Star Trek, the Second Generation" during my formative years.
 

Expat-hack

Too much lost generation as a kid!
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I meant "the next generation"! "The next generation!"
Oh, now I will NEVER get into Starfleet Academy. :(
 

Roxxsmom

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Goes to cool article about Mars and reads it, then stays on Guardian biology site to read all articles about the size of sex organs...

Seriously, there were something like 5 articles about breasts, testes, and penises underneath the one about Mars. I couldn't look away.
 

StormChord

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What happened to the water?

If Mars can lose that much water it bodes ill for human dreams of terraforming.

Mars doesn't have a strong magnetic field to protect it from the solar wind. As with the earth, if Mars was warm and had a liquid water ocean, it most likely also had a water cycle, lifting the evaporating water into the upper atmosphere - where it becomes vulnerable to the solar wind stripping it away, molecule by molecule.

Such a process doesn't happen on earth because the earth's magnetic field redirects the solar winds over and around us, as seen (oversimplified) here: http://www.windows2universe.org/glossary/plasmaspheric_gain.html

Also, that half of Mars that's much lower and smoother than the other half is suggested to be the result of a gargantuan asteroid impact that carried enough force to strip away half the planet's crust - the difference between the two halves is jarring, especially when looking at a planetwide altitude map and noting that one half is much newer than the other and less scarred by craters. The article's older but I think it still holds water (heheheheh) http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/giant-asteroid-flattened/
One potential side effect of this impact, bigger than anything we've ever seen, is that the huge cloud of debris that must have been flung into space included a large amount of the water that would have been on Mars at the time.

Space is way cool you guys.
 

Zoombie

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This is why Venus, despite being the seemingly less appealing place, actually strikes me as a better place for colonization - it actually HAS a magnetosphere AND a molten core. Also, it has near to 1 Earth Gravity!

...also, uh, terran air is lighter than Venusian air, so you can build enclosed habitats and they'll be naturally buoyant and THAT MEANS WE CAN BUILD VENUSIAN CLOUD CITIES!
 

Neegh

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Yeah. In the sulfuric acid clouds. Mars is easier. Though why we are not building a moon base or three is beyond me. The moon is a much better place to launch missions to other planets from than the earth is. Besides, what we'll learn in the process will be directly applicable to colonizing other worlds.
 

Magdalen

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Thanks William!!

Don’t ask for everything on your platter,” she said. “Be satisfied with a wrinkled pea, for there’s another world we’re all going to that’s better than this
one.”
“I know that world,” he said.
“It’s peaceful,” she said.
“Yes.”
“There’s quiet,” she said.
“Yes.”
“There’s milk and honey flowing.”
“Why, yes,” he said.
“And everybody’s laughing.”
“I can see it now,” he said.
“A better world,” she said.
“Far better,” he said. “Yes, Mars is a great planet.”
Ray Bradbury, The Illustrated Man
 

blacbird

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This is why Venus, despite being the seemingly less appealing place, actually strikes me as a better place for colonization - it actually HAS a magnetosphere AND a molten core. Also, it has near to 1 Earth Gravity!

Actually, Venus does not have a significant magnetosphere. It rotates far too slowly to generate one.

Not to mention that it has virtually no water.

caw
 

zerosystem

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This is why Venus, despite being the seemingly less appealing place, actually strikes me as a better place for colonization - it actually HAS a magnetosphere AND a molten core. Also, it has near to 1 Earth Gravity!

...also, uh, terran air is lighter than Venusian air, so you can build enclosed habitats and they'll be naturally buoyant and THAT MEANS WE CAN BUILD VENUSIAN CLOUD CITIES!

I don't know if many people would want to live in a cloud city next to those toxic clouds. And then there's the surface, which is so volatile, you can be crushed and burned to death in moments.

Mars is the best way to go. I also think it will be possible to terrafrom that planet to make it easier for people to live. Hopefully by then, we will learn how to generate a magenetic field around a planet.
 

blacbird

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Mars is the best way to go. I also think it will be possible to terrafrom that planet to make it easier for people to live. Hopefully by then, we will learn how to generate a magenetic field around a planet.

Mars was once, early in its planetary history, "terraformed", at least to some extent. But that was when the sun was cooler and it had a good magnetosphere to protect it, Prospects for "terraforming" Mars now?:

Mike Tyson has better prospects of becoming President of the United States.

caw
 

Kylabelle

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Mike Tyson has better prospects of becoming President of the United States.

caw


Ooh. Dream ticket: Mike Tyson and Barbara Mikulski.
 

zerosystem

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Mars was once, early in its planetary history, "terraformed", at least to some extent. But that was when the sun was cooler and it had a good magnetosphere to protect it, Prospects for "terraforming" Mars now?:

Mike Tyson has better prospects of becoming President of the United States.

caw

But if future man creates an artificial magnetic field around Mars, it would solve the problem of solar winds stripping away its atmosphere. That way we can rebuild Mar's atmosphere and make it livable for earthly life.