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’.
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
No, Mars was not formed by the moom-forming impact event between Gaia and Theia. The moon is the remnant you’re talking about, not Mars.
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’.