Martian floods? Scientists say rover found evidence

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

The Perseverance rover, which spent months traveling to Mars, could hardly have landed in a more interesting spot.

The Jezero crater — a dry, wind-scoured patch of Martian rock where the rover touched down in February — was once a lake bed fed by an ancient river with floods so powerful they could move boulders, scientists say.

Those findings, published last week in the journal Science, confirmed scientists’ suspicions that the crater contained a lake millions of years ago, and also suggests that this part of Mars had a warm, humid past with a more complicated water cycle than was known.

“There were rushing rivers here,” Katie Stack Morgan, a deputy project scientist of the Mars 2020 project and an author of the paper, said of Jezero’s landscape some 3.5 million years ago. “Jezero might have been a good place for life to exist and that environment evolved over time.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/martian-floods-scientists-say-rover-found-evidence/ar-AAPu0z3

[kentuck]

1. My theory is that Mars was at one time very much like Earth today.

There were Martians that were more advanced than we are today. They were capable of interstellar exploration.

Their polar caps melted and their oceans, after flooding much of the planet, then began to quickly evaporate into the rocks and dust it is today.

My theory is that we are descendants of the Martians and that a civilization of humans takes between 5-10,000 years to reach their ascendancy in intelligence and technological achievements. We are nearing that ascendancy. (Rod Serling, if you are listening )

The Earth will resemble Mars much quicker than we think. Just like the Martians, we will have to find another planet to live on. Our instincts tell us to explore the universe.

This is just a theory, folks.

[FarPoint]

3. I sense that too.....

We may learn they self destructed long, long ago.....

[Irish_Dem]

7. My thoughts as well. History repeating itself.

That is why the wealthy elite are building their escape pods for when they trash this planet.

I guess humans just keep repeating the cycle.

[tavernier]

15. If that theory is true

wouldn’t there be some evidence of civilization? Surely if river rocks withstood the ravages of time, some Martian made objects would have as well, especially if they used materials stronger than rock.

[kentuck]

16. Yes, I think they will soon discover those remnants of civilizations.

They have explored so little of the planet, they have not yet discovered it.

If the planet did indeed become uninhabitable, and they were an advanced civilization, they probably had nowhere to go except underground. They could have build entire cities under the surface of Mars, after the initial explorers left the planet.

I think we have just scratched the surface of Mars, so to speak.

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. "My theory is that we are descendants of the Martians" - do you mean "all life on Earth is descended

... from Martian life"? Because DNA clearly shows our relationship to all other living organisms on Earth, and how closely related. Plus all of biology, of course.

And if it's "all life", then Mars had only about 500 million years at most to become interplanetary, and then seed Earth, while it took us about 4 billion years.

[kentuck]

20. MY theory is that the Martian life forms were more advanced than anything on Earth at the time...

...and human life forms are directly related to those "aliens".

Also, the Earth looked much different then, than now. For example, the Sahara Desert of today would have been the most lush creative area on Earth at one time.

I think the arrival of Martian life-forms sped up the process of evolution on Earth.

(I have no theory on the 500 million years to become interplanetary)

Of course, this is all theoretical.

[muriel_volestrangler]

21. So you're with the creationists on this?

Humans are related to Martians, but not other lifeforms on Earth, because we're more 'advanced'.

I think calling that a "theory" is overgenerous. "Belief", perhaps.

[kentuck]

22. That sounds like an "opinion"..

I don't see it related to the "creationists" theory. I don't see women being created from a rib of man, etc.

[muriel_volestrangler]

23. Sure, but it's the opinion with evidence to back it up

rather than a wild-ass guess that all of biology is fundamentally wrong. You're saying that humans are so special that they must be direct relations of beings that no-one has ever seen any evidence of. You're denying that evolution on Earth could produce us (but somehow, even more intelligent beings did develop on Mars without ancestors from another world. What was extra-special about that planet?)

No, you can't see how similar your belief is to theistic creationism. But we can work on that. The rib wasn't the important part of the biblical creation myth. It was that humans were created separately from animals, in the image of God, and superior to animals. You're substituting unseen Martians for an unseen god.

[kentuck]

24. Who said that "intelligent beings did develop on Mars without ancestors from another world"?

In the space-time continuum, I think it is very possible that happened.

I do not wish to debate God or the creationists theory.

At one time, the Earth was the center of the universe, believed by all the scientists and the intelligent people in the world. So, science has never been infallible.

I was only giving my theory on what happened to Mars?

[muriel_volestrangler]

29. Then if you believe we're relations of aliens from yet another world, why bring Mars into it?

Why not name the ultimate ancestral planet - Venus, something somewhere else in the galaxy, or another galaxy?

If you don't want to talk about God or creationists, will you talk about Xenu?

[kentuck]

30. Why limit evolution to just one planet?

Seems we are limiting ourselves?

[muriel_volestrangler]

31. Because of the evidence.

Fossils, DNA, anatomy, all of biology. We are apes, whether or not you like it. And we're primates, mammals, vertebrates, animals, and eukaryotes.

You can dream that you're really descended from a space alien, but it would mean throwing away most of human knowledge just to get that "I'm special" feeling. Which, ironically, would be throwing away the "special" bit about humans.

[kentuck]

34. It's hard to argue with "evidence"...

unless you have been sent to prison because of false "evidence". You have your facts. I have my theories. Agreed? I am not asking anyone to believe them, and certainly, not forcing them on anyone else.

[muriel_volestrangler]

36. As I said, "theories" is too fancy a word.

But you have what you think, certainly.

[lagomorph777]

25. Probably not as simple as that.

Mars may have cooled to habitable temperatures a few hundred million years before Earth, and may well have spawned some simple life earlier than Earth. But given the timeline of Earth's life, there wouldn't have been enough time to develop very complex life forms.

However, it is possible that an asteroid collision could have knocked off a chunk of Mars, which ended up hitting the earth, and might have carried some of these primitive organisms, thus seeding life here. (Panspermia).

So, in that scenario, we would be the descendants of Martians.

[kentuck]

27. Possible, I suppose.

If we put a hundred people in a room, we would probably get a hundred different opinions. Even if they shared the same religion.

[edhopper]

32. Based on zero evidence

and counter to the biological evidence from Earth.

[kentuck]

35. Yes.

Last edited Thu Oct 14, 2021, 10:25 AM - Edit history (1)

Based on zero evidence. Theories are not based on facts or evidence.

[edhopper]

37. Of course they are

theories are used to explain facts and evidence, and then further investigation is used to confirm or negate the theory.

The theory that there was once running water on Mars is based on the evidence obtained so far. We need more exploration to confirm the theory.

There is zero evidence of any civilization on Mars. In fact the evidence that there might have been life does not get past the microbe stage.

[brooklynite]

2. Climate Change?

[Buckeye_Democrat]

5. Mars lost its magnetic field long ago.

Then most of the atmosphere was slowly scrubbed away into space by the solar wind.

I think that's still the main hypothesis, anyway.

[lagomorph777]

26. Yes, and there are competing/complementary hypotheses.

Another one says that the planet's deep rocks chemically bind and remove water, and the more those rocks cool, the more water disappears. Not encouraging news for us; Earth is cooling too, although more slowly than Mars.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

4. Yep, it was landed there because that area appeared to be...

... an old river delta from overhead images.

[bobalew]

6. That really big volcano on Mars...

Olympus, is the fore-end of a very large Asteroid that hit it from the opposite side, which pretty much ended the whole experiment, including the molten core & magnetic fields of the planet... At that point, Nothing had a chance of survival... Just a pet hypothesis of mine....

[Buckeye_Democrat]

9. I haven't yet heard any evidence of such an impact, but...

... maybe I missed it?

I think the fact that it's a smaller planet is the usual explanation for the loss of Mars' earlier magnetic field. The outer core of it's central "dynamo" cooled off too much, after lasting for nearly a billion years.

Whereas Earth's molten core is still producing a magnetic field, but it has temporarily vanished several times in the past during polarity changes and such. There's been some evidence that ancient humans had to retreat into caves about 40,000+ years ago because of a temporarily weak magnetic field, which is about the same period that paintings made with red ochre (a sunscreen still used in Africa) were dated in caves around the world.

Mars' loss of a magnetic field, and later most of its atmosphere:
https://www.universetoday.com/145976/when-did-mars-lose-its-global-magnetic-field/

[NickB79]

8. 3.5 million years wasn't very long at all in geological terms

Most claims of water flowing on Mars are dated from much earlier in the time of our solar system, on the order of 2-3 billion years.

If Mars still had flowing water 3.5 million years ago, that greatly increases the odds that life could still be present to this day.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

10. True!

That's far more recent than what I would've ever expected, and that's indeed like the blink of an eye compared to the age of our solar system.

Even the extinction of our large dinosaurs is much older than that, and that also happened only "recently" compared to the age of Earth and the presence of life here. (Which was only microorganisms for the majority of time of life on this planet.)

[NickB79]

11. Given what we know about Earth's deep biosphere, I feel like life is very hard to kill off

Once it gains a foothold on a planet, it basically lasts until the planet itself is physically destroyed.

We're discovering microbial life 1.5 miles underground, and even multicellular fungi and nematodes, subsisting on chemical reactions, living unknown lengths of time, and reproducing once every 10,000 years! That's just amazing.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-23855436

[Buckeye_Democrat]

12. It's found anywhere on Earth where there's liquid water.

Without human intervention within labs and such, I mean.

There's been simple life found very DEEP underground where there's water, so I agree that it would be hard to eradicate all life on this planet.

Meanwhile, the Atacama Desert in Chile is more sterile than a hospital operating room because it's so dry.

Working with what we know about life on this planet, it's understandable that scientists are most interested in liquid water on other planets and moons.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. I think NBC (who wrote the MSN story) screwed up - should be billion

The Science paper it points to says:

The 45-km diameter Jezero crater was selected as the landing site based on orbital images, which showed geomorphic expressions of two sedimentary fan structures (western and northern) at the edges of the crater (5, 6). These were inferred to be river delta deposits that formed in an ancient lake basin during the Late Noachian or Early Hesperian epochs on Mars (~3.6–3.8 Ga)

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abl4051#F2

and that's the only date I can find in it. These all say "3.5 billion":
https://www.space.com/mars-rover-perseverance-confirms-lake-delta-jezero-crater
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58852236
https://theconversation.com/perseverances-first-major-successes-on-mars-an-update-from-mission-scientists-168730

[Buckeye_Democrat]

14. Thanks! That makes more sense!

That fits well with estimates of when Mars still had a magnetic field too.

They still might find some evidence of prior life there. Scientists found evidence for simple life on this planet from billions of years ago, so that amount of time doesn't prevent it from happening.

[Shanti Shanti Shanti]

18. Read the science journals, not stupid MSM, it was 3.5 - 3.7 BILLION years ago

[lagomorph777]

28. Million, billion - to a reporter they're all just big numbers.

[Lucinda]

17. ❤️ ✿❧🌿❧✿ ❤️

[roamer65]

33. Good luck and thanks for all the fish!