this is what Mars looks like today and
this is what it may have looked like
three to three-and-a-half billion years
ago notice the difference well the
planet was warmer and wetter and even
had an ocean that covered the entire
northern hemisphere so where did that
ocean go I’m Brendan Mullen and
astrobiologists and emerging Explorer
with National Geographic and I’m going
to tell you what happened
four-and-a-half billion years ago when
the solar system first form Earth and
Mars formed from basically the same sort
of stuff like carbon silicates oxygen
nitrogen you know stuff like that
they’re basically the same it’s for one
key difference that’s sighs if we shrunk
Earth and Mars down to scale and let’s
say what’s make Mars the size of a
softball urn would be the size of a
bowling ball big difference in the
universe size matters when Earth and
Mars and all the other plans first
formed they’re very hot and they’ve been
cooling off since but the size
difference means everything Earth still
has a churning liquid metal core in it
while Mars is essentially frozen solid
without a churning molten core like an
earth Mars doesn’t have a magnetosphere
a protective magnetic field around the
planet without the magnetosphere the
solar wind or charged particles from the
Sun hit the atmosphere
strip off molecules and atoms over time
so billions of years later we have far
less atmosphere on Mars and we used to
so what does that have to do with more
disappearing ocean well without that
pressure of the atmosphere on top of it
that water evaporates out into space or
freezes beneath the surface but we can
still see the role that it played in
shaping the Martian terrain
is there a chance of a fine life on the
surface of Mars
the answer is actually yes if we found
that life what I would really be ashamed
to say is that we did something bad to
it
this is what it may have looked like
three to three-and-a-half billion years
ago notice the difference well the
planet was warmer and wetter and even
had an ocean that covered the entire
northern hemisphere so where did that
ocean go I’m Brendan Mullen and
astrobiologists and emerging Explorer
with National Geographic and I’m going
to tell you what happened
four-and-a-half billion years ago when
the solar system first form Earth and
Mars formed from basically the same sort
of stuff like carbon silicates oxygen
nitrogen you know stuff like that
they’re basically the same it’s for one
key difference that’s sighs if we shrunk
Earth and Mars down to scale and let’s
say what’s make Mars the size of a
softball urn would be the size of a
bowling ball big difference in the
universe size matters when Earth and
Mars and all the other plans first
formed they’re very hot and they’ve been
cooling off since but the size
difference means everything Earth still
has a churning liquid metal core in it
while Mars is essentially frozen solid
without a churning molten core like an
earth Mars doesn’t have a magnetosphere
a protective magnetic field around the
planet without the magnetosphere the
solar wind or charged particles from the
Sun hit the atmosphere
strip off molecules and atoms over time
so billions of years later we have far
less atmosphere on Mars and we used to
so what does that have to do with more
disappearing ocean well without that
pressure of the atmosphere on top of it
that water evaporates out into space or
freezes beneath the surface but we can
still see the role that it played in
shaping the Martian terrain
is there a chance of a fine life on the
surface of Mars
the answer is actually yes if we found
that life what I would really be ashamed
to say is that we did something bad to
it
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