NASA's new simulation of ancient Mars looks just like Earth - Polidicks

[video=youtube;sKPrwY0Ycno]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKPrwY0Ycno[/video] [QUOTE]Nasa has released a video revealing what Mars may have looked like as a young planet billions of years ago.It appears to have had a thick atmosphere that was warm enough to support oceans of liquid water - a crucial ingredient for life. The animation, created by Nasa's [B][URL="http://ipy.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.html"]Conceptual Image Lab[/URL][/B], shows how the surface of Mars might have developed over four billion years. The artist's concept is based on evidence that Mars was once very different. It shows vast Martian lakes surrounded by mountain ranges, beneath Earth-like blue skies and rapidly moving clouds. The shift from a warm and wet climate to a cold and dry one is shown as the animation progresses. [IMG]http://media.skynews.com/media/images/generated/2013/8/5/251769/default/v3/pia16918-1-522x293.jpg[/IMG]Nasa's Curiosity rover has been exploring Mars since 2011The lakes dry up and transform into a rocky landscape with canyons, volcanoes and craters. The atmosphere gradually turns to the dusty pink and tan hues seen on Mars today. Nasa scientist Dr Pan Conrad told Sky News: "We think that the when Mars was created it was a lot wetter and warmer than it is today. "It probably lost much of its atmosphere over time and that's how it came to be such a desert and cold place."[/QUOTE] [URL]http://news.sky.com/story/1168023/nasa-video-mars-evolution-from-watery-world[/URL] :( Poor Mars

the atmosphere went because Martian gravity is simply too low right?

[QUOTE=BrainDeath;42862431]the atmosphere went because Martian gravity is simply too low right?[/QUOTE] No, the planet's core stopped rotating, causing the magnetic field to collapse and solar winds slowly stripped the atmosphere away. The small size of the planet contributed though, the low mass couldn't sustain the core so indirectly you may be right. Correct me if I'm wrong, someone.

[QUOTE=Orkel;42862502]No, the planet's core stopped rotating, causing the magnetic field to collapse and solar winds slowly stripped the atmosphere away. The small size of the planet contributed though, the low mass couldn't sustain the core so indirectly you may be right. Correct me if I'm wrong, someone.[/QUOTE] You're spot on.

[QUOTE=Orkel;42862502]No, the planet's core stopped rotating, causing the magnetic field to collapse and solar winds slowly stripped the atmosphere away. The small size of the planet contributed though, the low mass couldn't sustain the core so indirectly you may be right. Correct me if I'm wrong, someone.[/QUOTE] I'm pretty sure that's how it worked; as for why it stopped rotating, maybe there were impurities in the iron core, or that the planet cooled a little too quickly, with the planet's magma becoming thicker and dragging on the rotating core, which eventually slowed the core's rotation enough for the magnetic fields to fail and reduce Mars to the frozen dustbowl we see today. It'd take a lot of energy to reheat the magma of Mars and reboot the core's spin, and nuclear explosives probably wouldn't be the best idea, although aren't there a fair bit of radioactive elements in Earth's magma? Not suggesting that Earth's core was kickstarted by atomic bombs, but radioactive materials tend to give off some semblance of heat as they decay, right? Maybe Mars didn't have as much radioactive material in it's blood, which caused it to cool quicker than Earth? Inevitably Earth's innards may cool significantly in maybe a billion or so years; we just had the benefit of cropping up while our world is still geologically active to a significant degree?

[QUOTE=ironman17;42862639]I'm pretty sure that's how it worked; as for why it stopped rotating, maybe there were impurities in the iron core, or that the planet cooled a little too quickly, with the planet's magma becoming thicker and dragging on the rotating core, which eventually slowed the core's rotation enough for the magnetic fields to fail and reduce Mars to the frozen dustbowl we see today. [B]It'd take a lot of energy to reheat the magma of Mars and reboot the core's spin[/B], and nuclear explosives probably wouldn't be the best idea, although aren't there a fair bit of radioactive elements in Earth's magma? Not suggesting that Earth's core was kickstarted by atomic bombs, but radioactive materials tend to give off some semblance of heat as they decay, right? Maybe Mars didn't have as much radioactive material in it's blood, which caused it to cool quicker than Earth? Inevitably Earth's innards may cool significantly in maybe a billion or so years; we just had the benefit of cropping up while our world is still geologically active to a significant degree?[/QUOTE] understatement of the millenium right here i cba to do the maths but the quantities of energy you're suggesting involve -you guessed it- stars

True though; you'd need a C'tan or some sort of "celestial" to thaw the innards of Mars to that degree...

[QUOTE=ironman17;42862639]as for why it stopped rotating, maybe there were impurities in the iron core, or that the planet cooled a little too quickly, with the planet's magma becoming thicker and dragging on the rotating core, which eventually slowed the core's rotation enough for the magnetic fields to fail and reduce Mars to the frozen dustbowl we see today.[/QUOTE] Small mass of the planet, so there wasn't enough gravitational pressure on the core, so not enough heat.

Wow. That's fucking depressing.

[QUOTE=LoLWaT?;42862726]So I guess the best we could do is just stick some colonies on Mars for the distant future? If we wanted to even have a hope of terraforming the planet and giving it an atmosphere, we'd have to give it a magnetic field right (assuming it's even possible by that means)? lol i'm sure by the time we had the capabilities of doing that it wouldn't even matter by then.[/QUOTE] By the time we could harness the full power of stars, we'd probably be aetherials or clouds of self-conscious nanomachines that feed by breaking things down into their base elements, without need of warmth or air to keep us alive. Still, wouldn't hurt to help out emerging ephermal races by transforming dead worlds into places that can be colonized, providing them more worlds upon which to further the scientific arts, so they can transcend the flesh and become part of the Cloud.

[QUOTE=ironman17;42862639]It'd take a lot of energy to reheat the magma of Mars and reboot the core's spin, and nuclear explosives probably wouldn't be the best idea, although aren't there a fair bit of radioactive elements in Earth's magma? Not suggesting that Earth's core was kickstarted by atomic bombs, but radioactive materials tend to give off some semblance of heat as they decay, right? Maybe Mars didn't have as much radioactive material in it's blood, which caused it to cool quicker than Earth? Inevitably Earth's innards may cool significantly in maybe a billion or so years; we just had the benefit of cropping up while our world is still geologically active to a significant degree?[/QUOTE] I think you just described the plot of Core

My father once said that throwing a really big asteroid belt at Mars to increase it's mass then wait many years for it to restart...

[QUOTE=ironman17;42862794]By the time we could harness the full power of stars, we'd probably be aetherials or [B]clouds of self-conscious nanomachines that feed by breaking things down into their base elements, without need of warmth or air to keep us alive[/B]. Still, wouldn't hurt to help out emerging ephermal races by transforming dead worlds into places that can be colonized, providing them more worlds upon which to further the scientific arts, so they can transcend the flesh and become part of the Cloud.[/QUOTE] read into "grey goo" theory

[QUOTE=LVL FACTORY;42862919]My father once said that throwing a really big asteroid belt at Mars to increase it's mass then wait many years for it to restart...[/QUOTE] Then that creates the problem of finding a large enough asteroid that is isn't big enough to knock Mars out of it's orbit on impact or destroying it completely, but still big enough to revive it's core.

[QUOTE=Bbarnes005;42862949]Then that creates the problem of finding a large enough asteroid that is isn't big enough to knock Mars out of it's orbit on impact or destroying it completely, but still big enough to revive it's core.[/QUOTE] I think a bigger problem would be how the fuck do you get a asteroid belt to hit mars :v:

Nah, we just need Douglas Quaid to start the ancient alien reactor on Mars and everything will be fine.

[QUOTE=LVL FACTORY;42863090]I think a bigger problem would be how the fuck do you get a asteroid belt to hit mars :v:[/QUOTE] use a rocket asteroids hit mars anyway

[QUOTE=Bbarnes005;42862949]Then that creates the problem of finding a large enough asteroid that is isn't big enough to knock Mars out of it's orbit on impact or destroying it completely, but still big enough to revive it's core.[/QUOTE]I wonder what would happen if you teleported a massive asteroid [i]into[/i] the planet. I mean, yeah, teleportation would have to be possible first, but I wonder what kind of crazy shit that would do to the planet. Would the new material just be compressed so hard the friction causes the Martian magma to warm back up, or would the planet just sort of pop apart? What if you broke up several large asteroids into bite-sized chunks and scattered them all over Mars? Perhaps when Deimos and Phobos lose orbit and decay into a ring of dust that settles on the planet, they'll contribute enough mass to allow for long-term viability for the Martian core.

[QUOTE=LoLWaT?;42862630]Neat. We have a glimpse at what the Earth would look like billions and billions of years from now when it finally dies too. [editline] 14 November, 2013 [/editline] I say that like it's an accurate guesstimation, but really all that matters is that one day the Earth will end up exactly like Mars. As it exists Mars is essentially just a second, dead Earth.[/QUOTE] billons of years from now, 5bn abx, earth will be greatly different since the sun will go super giant

[QUOTE=ironman17;42862639]I'm pretty sure that's how it worked; as for why it stopped rotating, maybe there were impurities in the iron core, or that the planet cooled a little too quickly, with the planet's magma becoming thicker and dragging on the rotating core, which eventually slowed the core's rotation enough for the magnetic fields to fail and reduce Mars to the frozen dustbowl we see today. It'd take a lot of energy to reheat the magma of Mars and reboot the core's spin, and nuclear explosives probably wouldn't be the best idea, although aren't there a fair bit of radioactive elements in Earth's magma? Not suggesting that Earth's core was kickstarted by atomic bombs, but radioactive materials tend to give off some semblance of heat as they decay, right? Maybe Mars didn't have as much radioactive material in it's blood, which caused it to cool quicker than Earth? Inevitably Earth's innards may cool significantly in maybe a billion or so years; we just had the benefit of cropping up while our world is still geologically active to a significant degree?[/QUOTE] i was reading an old soviet textbook that also said that theory that the heat needed for the core to remain molten was generated by heavy elements that release heat when under pressure

[QUOTE=Orkel;42862502]No, the planet's core stopped rotating, causing the magnetic field to collapse and solar winds slowly stripped the atmosphere away. The small size of the planet contributed though, the low mass couldn't sustain the core so indirectly you may be right. Correct me if I'm wrong, someone.[/QUOTE] I imagine an alternate reality where Mars was large enough to survive, and that life evolved at the same time and pace as Earth. You would look up at the sky with a telescope and see a blue marble just like our own... And that they are looking back at us.

[QUOTE=TheFishyG;42862882]I think you just described the plot of Core[/QUOTE] [B][I]Core 2: Red Planet[/I][/B]

[QUOTE=Orkel;42862760]Small mass of the planet, so there wasn't enough gravitational pressure on the core, so not enough heat.[/QUOTE] Doesn't a huge amount of Earth's heat come from fissile material as well? Maybe the reason Mars never had a real magnetosphere is because earth has all of it, which is both really great and also kind of a shame, we're here today because of it but we can't see what life on Mars might have been like because of it.

[QUOTE=LoLWaT?;42862726]So I guess the best we could do is just stick some colonies on Mars for the distant future? If we wanted to even have a hope of terraforming the planet and giving it an atmosphere, we'd have to give it a magnetic field right (assuming it's even possible by that means)? lol i'm sure by the time we had the capabilities of doing that it wouldn't even matter by then.[/QUOTE] The only way that could even be done by us would be to throw proto-planets or enough big asteroids at mars and hope we add enough mass to keep the core going and create enough heat to restart the core in general, but then we'd be waiting a few million years for the surface to cool down again, that's assuming we didn't completely blow the planet apart as well.

Video and soundtrack really reminded me of Morrowind.

You think we were descendants from Mars?

[QUOTE=JumpinJackFlash;42863664]I wonder what would happen if you teleported a massive asteroid [i]into[/i] the planet. I mean, yeah, teleportation would have to be possible first, but I wonder what kind of crazy shit that would do to the planet. Would the new material just be compressed so hard the friction causes the Martian magma to warm back up, or would the planet just sort of pop apart? What if you broke up several large asteroids into bite-sized chunks and scattered them all over Mars? Perhaps when Deimos and Phobos lose orbit and decay into a ring of dust that settles on the planet, they'll contribute enough mass to allow for long-term viability for the Martian core.[/QUOTE] This would be a neat question for [url=http://what-if.xkcd.com/]xkcd's "What If" thing[/url] as a follow up to his recent answer about expanding the volume of a planet.

[QUOTE=ROFLBURGER;42866111]You think we were descendants from Mars?[/QUOTE] That might explain a lot! I mean, the human race is so different from all the other inhabitants in planet Earth. What if we are the true ET's and we knew shit was going down in our home planet, Mars, and escaped somehow before it hit us. I find this to be a very interesting theory. There's a lot to add on to it, though.

[QUOTE=gsp1995;42866338]That might explain a lot! I mean, the human race is so different from all the other inhabitants in planet Earth. What if we are the true ET's and we knew shit was going down in our home planet, Mars, and escaped somehow before it hit us. I find this to be a very interesting theory. There's a lot to add on to it, though.[/QUOTE] That isn't how that theory goes. It's way out there, but the theory doesn't put "humans" as the escapees, and especially not as the species to have engineered our supposed existence here. It puts microorganisms as sort of "pets" placed by extraterrestrial beings, and I've heard literally nothing of the origin being Mars. That's the stuff of super-soft science fiction ignoring a few key points to support a silly idea.

[QUOTE=Orkel;42862502]No, the planet's core stopped rotating, causing the magnetic field to collapse and solar winds slowly stripped the atmosphere away. The small size of the planet contributed though, the low mass couldn't sustain the core so indirectly you may be right. Correct me if I'm wrong, someone.[/QUOTE] So the basic premise behind the movie The Core was actually correct? (Aside from it being able to happen here, today)