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Maps Show Mars Was Once More Like Earth

vrioux writes "NASA scientists have discovered additional evidence that Mars once underwent plate tectonics, slow movement of the planet's crust, like the present-day Earth. A new map of Mars' magnetic field made by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft reveals a world whose history was shaped by great crustal plates being pulled apart or smashed together. ."

11 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. Breaking News! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Earth not center of universe, other planets similar. News at 11!

    1. Re:Breaking News! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Earth not center of universe, other planets similar.

      Similar is not the same thing as "alike". We're still grasping with whether the various effects we see on Earth exist on other planets. Even if we find that these effects are common, we're still left with a quandry about Earth itself. There are just so many little things about the Earth that are balanced in favor of life (e.g. Distance from Sun, size of star, size of planet/gravity, magnetic field strength, atmosphere composition, etc.), that it's statistically hard to say that there's life anywhere we'd be able to reach before we're long extinct.

      Look up the Drake Equation for more info on why the Earth may very well be "the center of the Universe". (At least as far as life is concerned.

    2. Re:Breaking News! by SteveAyre · · Score: 2, Insightful

      that it's statistically hard to say that there's life anywhere we'd be able to reach before we're long extinct.

      Similar life. :o)

      Life would still have the potential to exist elsewhere, but would have to adapt to a different environment. As a result it could exist but would probably not resemble anything we've seen before... we may not even know it if we did find it.

    3. Re:Breaking News! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Life would still have the potential to exist elsewhere, but would have to adapt to a different environment.

      This is a fairly common theory (especially in the wake of the early findings that the other planets in the Solar System are uninhabitable by humans), but our studies of our own solar system suggest it to be untrue. If life were as adaptable as suggested, then we'd find inflatable beings on Jupiter, Crystaline entities on Venus, creepy crawlers on Mars, and other life forms well suited to their environment.

      Yet no such creatures have ever been found. Hope is still held that water creatures may be found on Jupiter's Icy Moons (specifically Europa), but we've pretty much exhausted the remainder of the Solar System.

      Turning back inward toward Earth, we can't find life in many combinations. Pretty much all life on Earth follows the pattern of Carbon-basis with DNA information storage. About the most extreme variations are the circulatory systems of animals, with some having Copper-based blood.

      Some organisms are able to survive extreme conditions, but they tend to not actually thrive in such environments. There are no signs of life that has specifically adapted to survive in conditions equating that of the more extreme planets. Even the Silicon-based Lifeform theory suffers heavily from a lack of any known examples.

      While we occupy only an insignificant portion of the universe, our best evidence to date suggests that we may be far more alone than we might have hoped.

      P.S. The Wikipedia article on The Fermi Paradox goes over many of these points in detail.

  2. probably more common than we think by BushCheney08 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wouldn't be surprised to find that the majority of solid planets that we examine undergo the same basic geologic mechanisms. Tectonics, subduction, spreading, etc, are probably far more common in the universe than we think.

    --
    Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
  3. Re:Aliens? by BushCheney08 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seeing as how we do not behave exactly like every other animal...

    Please tell me you're being facetious. I'm sure you'll find that no two types of animals behave *exactly* alike. However, a whole lot of them (including us), do exhibit many similar behaviours.

    --
    Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
  4. Re:Aliens? by meringuoid · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Seeing as how we do not behave exactly like every other animal, would there be a way that we could have come from Mars? Perhaps Adam and Eve were real and the first couple to come.

    Rubbish. We came from the Pak homeworld.

    In other words, no. We, as in humans, didn't come from Mars. We're definitely mammals, closely related to the other great apes. It's about as plain as you could ask for at every level from DNA right through to gross anatomy.

    It is conceivable that life originated on Mars and spread to Earth in the days of nothing but single-celled organisms, but that's quite another matter.

    --
    Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
  5. If Mars was like Earth... by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Does that mean the Earth will end up like Mars in the future?
    And how will this data help us terraforming Mars?

    Far from answering, I think this only leaves us with more questions asked.

  6. Re:Aliens? by m50d · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Seeing as how we do not behave exactly like every other animal, would there be a way that we could have come from Mars?

    We're incredibly similar to every other animal - same basic chemistry, most of our genome the same. We have the same ancestors as every other living thing on this rock. A better (and open) question is whether all life on Earth is descended from (primitive) life that originated on Mars and was carried here by meteorites before Mars became uninhabitable.

    --
    I am trolling
  7. Re:Aliens? by PakProtector · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Seeing as how we do not behave exactly like every other animal, would there be a way that we could have come from Mars? Perhaps Adam and Eve were real and the first couple to come.
    Rubbish. We came from the Pak homeworld.

    Yes, yes you all did.

    Now, if you breeders would simply shut up and let us Adults do the thinking, things would get better.

    Sincerely, Brennan-monster.

    --

    Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
    man: no entry for woman in the manual.
    "Qua!?"

  8. Re:Aliens? by ediron2 · · Score: 2, Insightful
    A better (and open) question is whether all life on Earth is descended from (primitive) life that originated on Mars and was carried here by meteorites before Mars became uninhabitable.

    A better question? An open question? Really!?

    Not meaning to troll, but how exactly would a meteor jump or ricochet off mars and impact Earth? The idea just seems damned far-fetched. And wouldn't the atmospheric burn leaving mars and impacting earth and months or years of hard vacuum time do a nice job of sterilizing most things? And if this idea you posit says earth's organisms needed to come from Mars, where'd Mars get 'em?! After all, any creation story that posits that it is 'monkeys all the way down' loses my confidence pretty damn fast.

    Given the huge range of temperatures, minerals, electrostatic activity, etc. here on earth, seems easier to imagine various 'crawled out of primordial soup' origin theories to space debris carrying lucky spores or enzymes. I mean, I like my infinite-improbabilities when they come packaged in a world that rolls the dice a millions of times per second for a few billion years.

    Again, I don't mean to troll. We can't prove or disprove what you're suggesting, but your suggestion starts with 3 or 4 soon-to-be-tested requirements (residue of life-supporting ecology on mars, evidence of life on mars, that life's genetic resemblance to earth life, matching timelines). I even like seeing scientific trial-ballons like yours. But your idea seems astronomically unlikely given the alternatives.