this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2024
532 points (98.9% liked)
[Dormant] moved to [email protected]
10406 readers
1 users here now
This community is dormant, please find us at [email protected]
You can find the original sidebar contents below:
Rules
- Be respectful and inclusive.
- No harassment, hate speech, or trolling.
- Engage in constructive discussions.
- Share relevant content.
- Follow guidelines and moderators' instructions.
- Use appropriate language and tone.
- Report violations.
- Foster a continuous learning environment.
Picture of the Day
The Busy Center of the Lagoon Nebula
Related Communities
🔭 Science
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
🚀 Engineering
🌌 Art and Photography
Other Cool Links
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
There's a non zero chance that Mars is a remnant of the planetary impact that occured to the Earth ~ 3.5 BYA. The issue is that's a really loose hypothesis, but the speculation is that Theia - which impacted Gaia (old Earth) was an ice planet / water world, which gave us most of our oceans.
Evidence of water evaporation on Mars therefore makes sense, as a catastrophic effect (such as planetary impact) would indeed cause the atmosphere to boil off, leaving behind these dry lakes and riverbeds.
I personally haven't spent enough time on Mars to make a substantial conclusion, there wasn't enough time to do any science between the sheer insanity of basic survival on a planet that seems uniquely designed to kill you and crush your spirit before doing so.
I totally approve of your analysis however, and it's proof why geologists deserve a seat on the interstellar jumpships :3
Also, a recent paper shed some doubt on the impact theory (apparently Earth and Moon isotopes are too similar), so the impact might not have happened or it might have been different than previously thought (glancing and causing the proto-Earth to spin itself apart, or strong enough to completely melt and mix both objects).
In any case, though, yeah, Mars has the wrong composition, size, and orbit for it to have been involved in any impact with Earth. The mistake probably came from Theia often being described as ‘Mars sized’.
I think they mean Mars could be Theia.
I think the fact that it’s really far away, in a circular orbit, and doesn’t have a big chunk missing is still a good sign that mars isn’t theia
Why would it have a chunk missing after all this time? If it did could we even tell? Whatever it was isn’t still in the area so being far away may not mean much. Circular orbit is probably biggest reason it’s likely not Mars, although it could have evened out relatively recently.
This simulation shows the Mars sized object merging with Earth so there goes that theory.