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Niall · 04-01-2013, 04:49 PM

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Spoiler:

By now, we all know that Mars was once home to water and may have even supported life. But what would the planet have looked like when it was lush and verdant?

According to Kevin Gill, like this. Created using elevation data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, this rendering shows what Mars would have looked like if water was present on the surface. It reveals a massive ocean on one side of the planet, and one of the longest valleys in the solar system, Vallis Marineris. Elsewhere, over on the left you can see the peaks of Olympus Mons, Pavonis Mons, Ascraeus Mons and Arsia Mons poking up out of the atmosphere. Gill explains how he made the image:

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This is a view of the Western hemisphere with Olympus Mons on the horizon beyond the Tharsis Montes volcanoes and the Valles Marineris canyons near the center. The height of the clouds and atmosphere are largely arbitrary and set for the sake of appearance and coverage over the exaggerated terrain elevations (~10 times elevation exaggeration). The eye is about 10,000 km (~6,200 miles) from the surface.

A two dimensional digital elevation model was first rendered in jDem846 (an open-source learning project of mine) using the MRO MOLA 128 pix/deg elevation dataset. In that model, I picked a sea level and scripted it such that terrain at or below that level was flat and blue.

The resulting model was then brought into GIMP were I painted in land features using a NASA Blue Marble Next Generation image for the source textures... I tried to envision how the land would appear given certain features or the effects of likely atmospheric climate.

Obviously, there's a fair deal of artistic license involved in creating a render of what Mars would look like as a planet supporting life. But that doesn't stop the image being a fascinating insight into the possible past life of Mars—and a refreshing change from seeing it as a dusty red ball.

[http://gizmodo.com/5973065/how-mars-...ered-in-water]

I think this is really cool. Mars looks so pretty with water.

Novo · 04-01-2013, 04:52 PM

Just looks like Earth really with more Land

Marc · 04-01-2013, 04:52 PM

Perhaps we'll [Earth] one day turn into a Mars

Glenn. · 04-01-2013, 04:55 PM

It'll happen in time Marc.

That is pretty amazing though.

Mac Hiavellian · 04-01-2013, 04:55 PM

It does look similar to Earth. Makes you wonder if it ever had life similar to Earth

Jords · 04-01-2013, 04:55 PM

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Originally Posted by Marc

Perhaps we'll [Earth] one day turn into a Mars

With sea levels rising I wouldnt be too sure

Marc · 04-01-2013, 04:59 PM

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Originally Posted by Jords

With sea levels rising I wouldnt be too sure

we could be a super cool underwater planet that looks lovely from a great distance!

Sticks · 04-01-2013, 05:48 PM

Ultimately the Earth will be scorched and destroyed when the Sun runs out of hydrogen fuel and swells to be a red giant as it tries to fuse helium into heavier elements like carbon.

What did for Mars was that it's liquid core cooled and solidified as it is smaller than the Earth. It is this liquid core, that we still have, that generated it's magnetosphere that protected its atmosphere from the solar wind from the Sun. Once it's core solidified and the geological heart beat of Mars died it's magnetosphere vanished. With it's protection gone, the solar wind stripped Mars of it's atmosphere, and any liquid water vanished into space.

Nowadays Mars is a cold dead world

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Petershaw1984 · 04-01-2013, 05:50 PM

Wow

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