Ancient Martian Ocean

Originally posted by r99pawn77
no, not sci-fi

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100613181245.htm

science daily has tons of fun science articles...

Science Daily is a great source, but I beat you to this one🙂 See my post on ocean covering 1/3 of mars. BTW, check out Physorg.com. It is also a great science site.

Originally posted by r99pawn77
beat me? I didn't know it was a competition. My main competition is making it through the day in one piece. And that fight, I usually lose.

You perhaps noticed the smiley? That wasn't a serious jab. I myself would love to have seen Mars in its watery heyday. There would have to have been an atmospheric pressure that at least allowed liquid water to be present and that says a lot compared to the sad state of affairs now.

Was there a planetary magnetic field then and they lost it? Was the magnetic fields in localized concentrations always like that even when it was a watery world? That has implications as to how well Mars would have been shielded from solar winds and such.

And the biggie, was there life then, and if so, was it based on our form of DNA and such? I could go on for hours with these kind of questions.


For instance, we see another planet all screwed up, Venus, it also has a very weak magnetic field and what it does have is not from the core but from its intense atmosphere and ionosphere which makes a weak field but not enough to save it from solar winds and corona discharges and so forth. Was it always like that.

All of that seems to be saying you better have a nice fat magnetic field if you want to stay safe from the sun stripping off the lighter gasses.