More Evidence for Early Oceans on Mars

DestroyAllZombies writes "More news about Mars. The good news: New Scientist reports that more analysis of Rover data supports the claims for widespread oceans in Mars' distant past. The bad news, from the article: 'An ocean of water once wrapped around Mars, suggests the discovery of soil chemicals by NASA's rovers. But the same chemicals also indicate that life was not widespread on the planet at the time the ocean was present.'"

Re:If the water was there, where did it go?

[THE anonymus coward]

Mars doesn't have the same gravity that the Earth does, nor does it have a magnetic field to stop incoming solar wind. The water could have evaporated, and since it is a lighter element (than CO2, which is most of Mars' atmosphere) it could have just blown away.

Re:The cold

[timmarhy]

actually i was reading a post by a pathologist a while ago concerning the fear of alien bacteria, and it's something of a misconception. it's actually very very likely that our bodies will be deadly to any alien life. example. can humans survive on mars unaided? no? so it means anything thats suited to the conditions on mars will die if exposed to our own viable conditions. interesting stuff i never thought it but it's quite obvious when you think it through.

Re:If the water was there, where did it go?

[Cadallin]

Any number of places. A lot of it might be trapped as ice or hydrate crystals underground. At least some of it is frozen at the north and south poles. And as others have noted, Mars has significantly lower gravity than earth (approximately 1/3 gee acceleration at the surface), which significantly impedes its ability to hold an atmosphere (which holds water), and additionally lacks a magnetosphere (through not being geologically active, a metallic core surrounded by liquid layers is necessary for one) which increases the effect of the solar wind on atmosphere loss.