Mars lost all of its (surface) water presumably due to solar wind, and thus never had time to evolve complex life. Earth would have faced the same fate were it not for the fact that the Moon collided with us at some distant point in time, surrendering its iron core to ours. Now, our Rare Earth has an unnaturally large active iron core, resulting in an unnaturally efficient magnetic field which is able to protect our waters from being blown away by Sun.
Just wondering, what would have stopped the Earth from having enough iron on its own in the first place? If the Moon could have that much iron, the Earth could as well have had it without needing to mix with the Moon, they're made from the same original matter after all.
One might be inclined to attribute the amount of good luck to devine intervention, but to this I would say: If the conditions on our planet would not have allowed for higher life, nobody would have been there to ask themselves why the conditions were slightly off.
It's not that the water "blew away" in the solar wind, it's that the atmosphere did, taking the water vapor in the atmosphere with it. This is a very gradual process, which would happen on Earth too, if not for the magnetic field.
I don't know that the collision with the moon is the secret here or not. I think it's complex.
I have very little reason to believe life evolved in Earth or even in Mars for that matter. The more likely scenario is that there’s rocks floating around everywhere that have spores of life throughout the galaxy ready to seed a suitable planet in geologically instantaneous timelines. That will explain the extremely rapid emergence of life on earth initially while it took a few billion years to evolve any further. In which case if Mars had flowing water at some point it likely also harbored at least single cell life.
Source: biologist but not specializing in evolution.
Many, many single-purpose rovers can be sent in the place of a human mission with no risk to human life. There is no scientific justification for sending humans on a science mission, it's mostly just adventurism.
If the most compelling recent hyopthetical solution to the Fermi Paradox is correct [0], finding anything other than a totally sterile Mars would be very, very bad news for humankind.
> The water which supplies the farms of Mars is collected in immense underground reservoirs at either pole from the melting ice caps, and pumped through long conduits to the various populated centers. Along either side of these conduits, and extending their entire length, lie the cultivated districts. These are divided into tracts of about the same size, each tract being under the supervision of one or more government officers.
> Instead of flooding the surface of the fields, and thus wasting immense quantities of water by evaporation, the precious liquid is carried underground through a vast network of small pipes directly to the roots of the vegetation. The crops upon Mars are always uniform, for there are no droughts, no rains, no high winds, and no insects, or destroying birds.
> The crops upon Mars are always uniform, for there are no droughts, no
> rains, no high winds, and no insects, or destroying birds.
Presumably the are still seasons, cloud or dust storms, and wind. Possibly also variations in supplied nutrition and water pressure, maybe even water impurities and minerals. Radiation fluctuations might lead to crop variance as well.
We live in truly amazing times. In a few years NASA may succeed in sending probes from Mars to Earth and we may get evidence for past or current life on Mars.
In 10 or 15 years if Starship works out we may be able to send scientists to Mars.
I'm a fan of the hypothesis that life on Earth came from Mars - will be very interesting to see how it develops as we study Mars.
It’s beyond obvious that water flew as rivers in Mars at some point, and looks like there’s some water there even now!
Even life, is there any reason to think there WASNT some microscopic life there at some point? I doubt anyone thinks there’s viable life there even now (though one can’t 100% exclude the possibility).
It’s like everyone kind of already knows these are the likely facts but we keep using these as scapegoat questions to fund more missions for rovers etc. Instead, wouldn’t it be better if we are honest to oursleves and find things we actually want to do? Like get some people there? Which again, more than the science is just about the accomplishment itself.
I’m genuinely curious about places like Europa. I’m not at all curious about digging more Martian dirt and doing increasingly insignificant geology on a dead planet.
I would argue that the main thing holding us back is the lack of funding. NASA's entire budget can't even compete with Meta's R&D department, so they have to take small steps. Investigate Mars, try to get people back on the moon (Artemis), and go from there.
Eventually we'll get to a point where we can explore Europa properly and we can send people to Mars, and all that, but it's going to take time. Without enough funding, things just take a lot of time.
>Even life, is there any reason to think there WASNT some microscopic life there at some point?
We have no clue about how likely it is for life to emerge or how it happens, so we can't really tell. Maybe we're on the only planet with life in the universe.
Finding proof of life on Mars would completely change that equation.
Science is the difference between "everyone kind of already knows" and proven facts. Don't confuse a hundred years of Martian sci-fi with actual scientific discoveries about Mars.
So agree, but the logistical challenges for even landing a probe on somewhere like Europa or Enceladus are far greater than landing somewhere as inert as Mars. Jupiter has an incredible magnetic field, we'd need to somehow land on the moon (which is a challenge in itself due to the potential for 30m spires of ice), drill through the surface ice and possibly through multiple subsurface oceans til we reached a layer that had geothermal vents.
Also while I agree with you that it's very likely that there was microscopic life on Mars at some point in the past, considering that finding evidence of life on other planets would be one of, if not the largest discovery in human history, I think it's important to keep going until we confirm it.
>There has long been debate in the scientific community about whether Mars had an ocean in its low-elevation northern hemisphere, Cardenas explained. Using topography data, the research team was able to show definitive evidence of a roughly 3.5-billion-year-old shoreline with substantial sedimentary accumulation, at least 900 meters thick, that covered hundreds of thousands of square kilometers.
I feel like the announcement that bodies of water have been found on Mars has been made every few years since the late 19th century. You'll have to drill into the details to learn what they actually found.
[+] [-] mach1ne|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Aardwolf|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] atoav|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eloff|3 years ago|reply
I don't know that the collision with the moon is the secret here or not. I think it's complex.
[+] [-] ramraj07|3 years ago|reply
Source: biologist but not specializing in evolution.
[+] [-] ratg13|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yrgulation|3 years ago|reply
“We need boots on the ground to back the good science behind these findings.”
Why is wanting to send people to mars to confirm or leverage these findings so offensive?
[+] [-] OmicronCeti|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mistrial9|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] goodcanadian|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] holografix|3 years ago|reply
What a momentous discovery for humankind that would be!
[+] [-] popcorncowboy|3 years ago|reply
0: If Loud Aliens Explain Human Earliness, Quiet Aliens Are Also Rare - https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ac2369
[+] [-] barbariangrunge|3 years ago|reply
> Instead of flooding the surface of the fields, and thus wasting immense quantities of water by evaporation, the precious liquid is carried underground through a vast network of small pipes directly to the roots of the vegetation. The crops upon Mars are always uniform, for there are no droughts, no rains, no high winds, and no insects, or destroying birds.
https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rgs/pmars-XXI.html
[+] [-] dotancohen|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] borissk|3 years ago|reply
In 10 or 15 years if Starship works out we may be able to send scientists to Mars.
I'm a fan of the hypothesis that life on Earth came from Mars - will be very interesting to see how it develops as we study Mars.
[+] [-] benjifri|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ramraj07|3 years ago|reply
Even life, is there any reason to think there WASNT some microscopic life there at some point? I doubt anyone thinks there’s viable life there even now (though one can’t 100% exclude the possibility).
It’s like everyone kind of already knows these are the likely facts but we keep using these as scapegoat questions to fund more missions for rovers etc. Instead, wouldn’t it be better if we are honest to oursleves and find things we actually want to do? Like get some people there? Which again, more than the science is just about the accomplishment itself.
I’m genuinely curious about places like Europa. I’m not at all curious about digging more Martian dirt and doing increasingly insignificant geology on a dead planet.
[+] [-] pocketarc|3 years ago|reply
Eventually we'll get to a point where we can explore Europa properly and we can send people to Mars, and all that, but it's going to take time. Without enough funding, things just take a lot of time.
[+] [-] CorrectHorseBat|3 years ago|reply
We have no clue about how likely it is for life to emerge or how it happens, so we can't really tell. Maybe we're on the only planet with life in the universe.
Finding proof of life on Mars would completely change that equation.
[+] [-] parasti|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zokier|3 years ago|reply
Well the little thing of not having any evidence indicating the presence of life.
[+] [-] trophycase|3 years ago|reply
Also while I agree with you that it's very likely that there was microscopic life on Mars at some point in the past, considering that finding evidence of life on other planets would be one of, if not the largest discovery in human history, I think it's important to keep going until we confirm it.
[+] [-] api|3 years ago|reply
There's this from 2008:
https://www.space.com/5546-proof-water-ice-mars.html
It seems to show evidence for subsurface ice on Mars now, though I'm not sure if this is H2O ice or CO2 ice.
[+] [-] OmicronCeti|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pessimizer|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iancmceachern|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yrgulation|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] diwank|3 years ago|reply