Did Mars ever look like this?

Adam Khor

This is what Mars would probably look like if it had watery oceans and an Earth-like atmosphere. Ok, not paleontology, although some say Mars probably was once like this a long, long, long time ago.
Maybe.

And the pics are too cool not to share.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/a-martian-dream-heres-what-the-red-planet-would-look-like-with-earth-like-oceans-and-life/266791/

dlofnep

It's possible. Would love to see a proper excavation of an area to see if any plant fossils exist.

Adam Khor

dlofnep wrote: »

It's possible. Would love to see a proper excavation of an area to see if any plant fossils exist.

Curiosity at least won´t tell us anything

Rubecula

I am fairly certain that if life ever did get a foothold on mars, it would really only be microbial life. But I have been wrong before. (Sadly quite often)

Adam Khor

Rubecula wrote: »

I am fairly certain that if life ever did get a foothold on mars, it would really only be microbial life.

Why?


I think anyone would be happy to be wrong if it was about this

Rubecula

It would be fantastic but as Mars was pretty much as it is now by about 3 billion years ago then the chances of life evolving much past the microbial stage are extremely low. After all it was like that here back then too and we have better conditions.

It is assumed Mars 'died' when it's magnetic field finally gave up and the solar wind stripped it of it's atmosphere, which in turn stripped it of it's water. Now only feeble amounts of each exist, and certainly no magnetosphere to protect it from solar winds or radiation.

Capt'n Midnight

very disappointed that a random sea level was chosen






if you look at the atmosphere of Venus it's 92 times the pressure of ours - the gravity is 9.04g - so let's say it's got 100 times as much gas per unit area relative to ours

it's mostly carbon dioxide 96% and nitrogen 3.5% and 70pm argon.

Let's add hydrogen to remove the CO2 and see what's left. ( 40% of the weight of the CO2 would be the weight of teh water so ~ 400m of water (10m water = 1 bar) )

0.7% Argon
3.5 times our atmosphere of Nitrogen - stick a good bit of that in the Nitrogen cycle and it's starting to look like home

(these figure are way off because I cba checking if molar or by weight and doesn't include 4 Bn years of solar wind )




If you look at mars today there is enough oxygen / CO2 in the ground to make a one bar atmosphere if you went for it ?

Adam Khor

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

very disappointed that a random sea level was chosen






if you look at the atmosphere of Venus it's 92 times the pressure of ours - the gravity is 9.04g - so let's say it's got 100 times as much gas per unit area relative to ours

it's mostly carbon dioxide 96% and nitrogen 3.5% and 70pm argon.

Let's add hydrogen to remove the CO2 and see what's left. ( 40% of the weight of the CO2 would be the weight of teh water so ~ 400m of water (10m water = 1 bar) )

0.7% Argon
3.5 times our atmosphere of Nitrogen - stick a good bit of that in the Nitrogen cycle and it's starting to look like home

(these figure are way off because I cba checking if molar or by weight and doesn't include 4 Bn years of solar wind )




If you look at mars today there is enough oxygen / CO2 in the ground to make a one bar atmosphere if you went for it ?

This is awesome, I didn´t understand a word of what you said