Cool, so that's all a factor of its slightly smaller size than earth, ....or I suppose also it's farther from the sun helping the core to cool faster for its relative size! ?? !Super Nova wrote:When the core stopped making the magnetic field that protects the planet from the solar wind, the attmosphere was progressively stripped away.... as it gets stripped away the amount of attmosphere reduces, the pressure drops.Malcolm_hates_your_kids wrote:So how come the pressure changed?Super Nova wrote:Agree. That have studies the crystal and compounds in on mars and concluded it was water. Plus there appears to be flood plains... water is the only thing that could have made them.BigP wrote:Given the size of the planet, the answer would be yesMalcolm_hates_your_kids wrote: Is water the only liquid that could have done it?
Liquid Water is conditional to pressure on it. That is, the less pressure the lower the boiling point. In a vaccum it just vaporizes. So no atmosphere, no liquid water on surface. Mars as very low pressure atmosphere, 0.6% of the Earth at sea level. What was there, evaporated and got blown away in the solar winds with the rest of it.
Interesting factoid.
The triple point of water is 32°F (0°C) and 6 millibars (a bar is one atmosphere of pressure). The triple point of water exists on the surface of Mars: You could hold a beaker of boiling water on the martian surface that had ice cubes floating in it, and the ice cubes wouldn't melt because the liquid water would be at the freezing point.
Also the gravity is less than earth so it was stripped away more quickly than it would happen on Earth. Then you get a run away situation, when it get too low, all the water is vapour then it too can be stripped away.
Also, it's got a massive canyon deeper than earth so it's all a bit interesting actually!
Cheers!
