Hellish Vision of Mars Unveiled

mvladivostok writes "Yahoo has an interesting little article in which it is suggested that Mars may not have once been a warm, wet and hospitable planet that somehow lost its atmosphere; instead, it is suggested that the dead planet was occasionally bombarded by melting meteorites that carved out its distinctive craters and valleys. An interesting read."

Comments

like earth?

[mr100percent]

"instead, it is suggested that the dead planet was occasionally bombarded by melting meteorites that carved out its distinctive craters and valleys"

Wait a minute, isn't that the same as earth and the rest of the planets? I mean, mercury doesn't get this kind of attention.

speculating

[katalyst]

Mars has always been a mystery to us humans, right from H.G.Well's War of the world , to the recent Red Planet, we've been fantasizing about Mars. The Pathfinder has been the most exciting Mars project yet !!! It's interesting to read theories as in this article, but then that's what they are-theories. I wonder if we will ever be able to CONCLUSIVELY prove such theories. (other than using a time machine ;) )

Re:speculating

[splateagle]

"CONCLUSIVE" proof of anything is impossible. One day I expect we'll have gathered enough information to be able to settle comfortably on one martian theory over the others, but the whole point about science is that you don't get to *know* the answers, you just have to keep asking the questions.

In that light this is an interesting article: personally I still think the atmospheric therories carry more wieght, but this is an interesting new way of asking the Mars question all the same.

Real advances are often the product of what someone in an earlier post refered to as "National Enquirer Science", which might more neutrally be called "thinking outside the box"

Re:speculating

[freeweed]

As Sagan so eloquently put it:

"The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed ate are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."

Just because the odd breakthrough comes from some really bizarre sounding theory, doesn't negate the fact that most crackpots are just that - crackpots.

Atmosphere

[SmartGamer]

Mars has a denser atmosphere than Earth. While spaceborne objects would be a nice explanation for these formations- if a bit uncreative- it forgets the element of the atmosphere, which is the only reason Earth doesn't get pounded into rubble every meteor shower.

Such objects tend to burn up in the atmosphere- and those which don't are rather uncommon, even geologically. What would be likely to make it through a thicker atmosphere?

I think this is a long shot, personally. It's a possibility- but for it to be a real possibility, this would have had to somehow occur before Mars had its atmosphere. Which is not impossible- far from it- but not particularly consistent with the data.

Admittedly, it's possible that the atmosphere was carried in a solid-frozen format on said bombardial objects, but that's even more of a stretch.

Compelling

[Anonymous Coward]

I always thought that the vision of an erstwhile warm, hospitable Mars is based on little more than wishful thinking.

Re:Life on Mars?

[foistboinder]

There may have been primitive bacteria or algae that were transported to Mars from Earth.

True, but it's more likely to have happened the other way (assuming there was life on Mars). "interplanetary cross-pollination" from a small planet to a large planet is easier than the other way around. The escape velocity for the smaller planet is lower and the gravity well of the larger planet make it easier for the debris to "find".

Re:3.85 billion years ago ...

[mOdQuArK!]

Thankfully, life has yet to crush itself.

We're working on it, though...

Re:Bullshit...

[Christianfreak]

What? I don't believe the article has anything to do with religion. I find it truely sad that someone can't offer an opposing scientific theory because it doesn't meet with other people's preconceptions.

Isn't that why the creationists are so annoying??? Because they can't make evolution fit with their preconceptions so its a lie?

Re:A bit contrived, perhaps?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was pretty sure the reason why Mars lost it's atmosphere was because it's core lost it's coherency and it's magnetosphere became weak enough for the solar wind to slowly strip it away.

Asteroids sizes unlikey

[Albinoman]

"25 huge asteroids or meteors, each about 60 to 150 miles in diameter"

I cant believe this one. Especially if you look at our own impact craters. The Chixaclub crater in the Yucatan made rings 180 miles wide and the asteroid was estimated to be only 6 miles wide. Doesnt anyone think we'd notice the pothole left by a 150 mile wide asteroid? I would have to doubt there would be enough melt from teh asteroid or enough steam or water from the planet to wipe these out.

Maybe if these guys are feeling really adventuresome they can read about the Sudbury impact (hit Canada 1.8 billion years too early) and the Vredefort impact in central Africa. These two left similar impact crater sizes and theyre still noticible 2 billion years after they hit. We found Chixaclub underneath all that marsh and muck and its 65 million years old (gets credited for dinosaur extinction).

Re:Life on Mars?

[error0x100]

If earth is anything to go by

Why do people always want to assume that Earth is 'something to go by', i.e. that Earth is probably "representative of an average planet with life"? Its the only planet with life on that we know have, making it a sample of size 1, and as such we have absolutely no clue whatsoever where it would lie on any statistical curves. Earth could just as well be a statistical outlier in most things, for all we know. Making any assumptions about other planets, based on Earth, seems like a dicy process to me. Perhaps Earth has been really slow on the evolution scale, i.e. perhaps other planets required much less time for evolution to progress. Or it could be the other way round, perhaps it was really quick. Or perhaps it was just average. Or perhaps in other parts of the universe, other factors play bigger roles, such as 'seeding' of planets. Collectively, we don't yet have enough scientific knowledge and understanding of these processes to even begin to make proper "educated guesses".

Just because Earth is the only planet we've seen, does not mean we can make statistical assumptions about it. Nor can we extend such assumptions to other planets, such as Mars, because for all we know, Mars may also have been a statistical outlier.