Sort of a “what if” but still.
What if? As I understand it, Mars once had a molten, liquid core that cooled and solidified. Once that happened the Magnetosphere it had was lost. Once that was lost the atmosphere it protected was lost, boiled off to space. Once the atmosphere boiled off the water boiled off into space as well. How long would that take? Just a few years?
So, all that atmosphere goes into space. Physics being what it is these things would slowly accumulate into lower entropy regions it would seem to me. Is there a nearby gravity sink with a lower entropy, more hospitable home to these elements that had previously been on Mars? UH, yeah.
Could that explain why our sea levels rose 300 to 400 feet some 15,000 years or so ago? At least in part? Could it really have been a “Martian Rain” for 40 days and nights?
I am certain a whole lot of folks smarter than me will point out at least one hundred reasons it cannot be so. I want to hear every one of them. You see, Real Science is NEVER settled.
Intriguing speculation. To me, anyway, not being an atmospheric physicist.
You’re saying oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, et al. — whatever was present in the Martian atmosphere — could no longer be held by the planet and leave Mars. The Sun’s gravitational force would naturally attract them towards the Sun, and, en route, the Earth would scoop them up yearly in its orbit.
I wonder if scientists have discussed this. They must have, right? I mean, the ones not fretting about global warming. I’ve heard about them hypothesizing about water being brought to Earth on asteroids, but not this. Maybe you’re line to have a theory with your name attached to it!
Very interesting! That would make for a pretty cool sci-fi story. I’m not being snarky or anything, I could just picture a very interesting plot line around that. Maybe there were some beings on Mars who earned themselves an even bigger smiting than we did!
Interesting theory. I wonder if the solar wind is stronger on water than gravity in the local solar system. If so than anything boiled off would have to head out into the solar system. Some of it might have ended up on Jupiter or Saturn.
Hummmm.....
Unless we were in close proximity in similar orbits in relation to the sun (the largest gravity well locally) and if the suns gravity would capture escaping vaporized oxygen/hydrogen molecules and pull them towards earth.
If earths gravity were strong enough to do that on its own, I doubt our moon would still be where it is.
That is indeed the case on Mars. Ancient lava fields indicate a planet-wide magnetic field, while more recent ones do not. It is believed that, once its core cooled down and could no longer generate a global magnetic field, Mars lost its "shield" from incoming cosmic rays (charged particles from, mostly, outside the solar system) and its atmosphere was blown away.
The following NOVA doc covers this very well...
Nova - Magnetic Storm - Earth's Invisible Shield:
30-40% of land mass being covered by miles-thick glaciers which rapidly (geologically speaking) melted is a more likely explanation.
No, you pretty much got it right. It’s a kind of an “Ankle bone connected to the leg bone’’ kind of thing. You need a planetary mass to be rotating with a molten liquid iron core. This molten mass creates a magnetic field which holds the atmosphere in place. Once the planets rotation slows or stops then the molten core begins to cool and your magnetic field begins to weaken and your atmosphere begins to dissipate. Once the core has cooled completely and has solidified then you have no atmosphere left. The length of time this takes depended on the size of the planet. It can a few hundred thousand years , millions or even a billions.