Do you think Mars is like the Earth, but hotter and no oxygen??

Question

I think Mars just a hotter non-oxygen verson of Earth because it does rain up there and they was finding some fossils of some type of bug up there. Do you think if it wasn't so hot and if it had more oxygen up there we can go there, build stuff, and live there?? And if we couldn't, why not what else is wrong with it??

P.S.: What type of bug fossil did they find like what type of bug(s) was it??

Ok it might have a little oxygen not sure.

Answer 1

In my opinion, Mars is what Earth is going to look like in a few millenia, when all the people are dead and the Earth has been sucked dry of all it's resources.

Answer 2

Mars is nothing like earth. Mars has almost no atmosphere and no water. And Mars is too small to be able to have a dense atmosphere. For this reason Mars can never be made livable for humans.

Because of the thin atmosphere and its distance to the sun Mars is also much much colder than earth. Not hotter.

The "fossil" that was found was found inside a meteorite that was found to have originated on Mars. Inside it were little globules that resembled fossils earth bacteria only much much smaller. So it has not been determined that those tiny formations actually were created by living organisms. The rock was formed about three billion years ago when Mars was wetter and warmer than it is now. At the time Mars also had a denser atmosphere so it is plausible that Mars might have yielded some form of primitive life then. This is what we need to find out. Was there life on Mars?

Answer 3

Mars is actually farther from the sun than earth and is much colder. Most places around Mars stay well below zero (a hundred below or more). In the middle in the summer, temperatures can get above zero but never what you would call warm. (these temps are fahrenheit).

Also it doesn't rain on Mars. It looks like it did at one time but hasn't for millions of years.

Thirdly the fossils that were found are actually just mineral deposits in the rocks. They might have been formed by some type of biological process but there is no proof of that. There are many other more likely explanations for the microscopic deposits but it would be very interesting if some solid proof were found of biological life being found on Mars.

Lastly, a big problem with Mars is that is has no protective magnetic field. Earth has a powerful magnetic field that shields us from a lot of the radiation put out by the sun. On Mars you would not be shielded from this radiation naturally so you wouldn't be able to just roam around much even if the atmosphere was breathable and it was warmer.

Answer 4

Ah, the joys of skimming the news. You've got the Bizzaro Cliff's Notes version of a couple of recent stories, and you're jamming them together to create a vision of Mars that just doesn't reflect reality.

It doesn't rain on Mars, at least at the moment, because there's no free standing water and hardly any atmosphere to support rain clouds. They have recently uncovered evidence that, at some point in the distant past, there may have been enough water on Mars for there to be rain.

And there are no fossil bugs on Mars - at least not that anyone's found so far. What was found several years ago were microfossils of tiny trails in rocks that might (emphasis on "might") be evidence that some sort of bacteria had passed by leaving a bit of slime in its wake. But it could have been something else entirely, or even nothing significant at all.

And overall, Mars is colder than the earth, being further from the sun.

Answer 5

Mars is COLDER than Earth. And it is much smaller and has less gravity.

You may be thinking of Venus, which is about the same size as Earth with the same gravity, but it has an extremely hot atmosphere with no free oxygen.

As to the fossils, there was a meteorite find in Antarctica that was identified as originating on Mars. It has what looked like bacteria fossils in it, although much smaller than Earth bacteria. Many scientists dispute these fossils, saying they are just rock formations that happen to look somewhat similar to fossils.

Answer 6

first of all, mars is colder than the earth, venus is the hottest in the solar system (i think this is the one u meant?) it is true mars has very little oxygen, but it doesnt rain there. (it does rain on venus [sulfuric acid] which also makes me think thats the one u meant?)

i do believe that if there were more oxygen (which could be done by putting plants there) and more air pressure, people could easily live there (if we can put up with the hurricanes and such in Florida, why cant we put up with the sandstorms on mars?)

by the way, they didnt find any bugs. they thought they found bacteria (which is unlikely that it was really bacteria), but no insects. an insect would be MUCH more satisfying to the scientific community than a bacterium.

Answer 7

There was a microfossil that was supposedly discovered in a Martian meteorite, but whether it is an actual lifeform is disputed. This isn't so much a "bug" as it was a tube that may have been a mineral -- no one is quite sure what the structure is.

Mars is considerably colder than the Earth and its atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide. There is no oxygen at all in its atmosphere which is a good indication that there are no plant-lifeforms. The oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere is all the byproduct of plant respiration.

Answer 8

I think you have some misconceptions about what Mars is like.

First, Mars isn't hot, it's cold. The Martian equator has a temperature similar to our polar regions, and the Martian polar regions are so cold that the Martian polar caps are partially made of dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide).

Second, it never rains on Mars. It has not rained on Mars for a billion years. In some areas it snows, but most of Mars is a desert. The flash floods that are thought to still occur are believed to be from underground ice deposits melting and coming to the surface.

Third, the bug you refer to are possible microfossils found in a meteorite that was knocked off Mars by an asteroid impact long ago. The meteorite has microscopic structures in it that look like impressions of bacteria, but they still aren't sure whether or not it's proof that there was life on Mars.

Also, in terms of geology and composition, the closest planet to Earth is not Mars but Venus. Mars is 1/10 the mass of Earth, much less dense, and is a geologically dead planet (no active volcanoes or plate tectonics). Venus is about the same size and density as Earth and has active volcanoes and other signs of continuing geologic activity. Venus also has continental cratons, while Mars does not. If you were to strip away Earth's oceans its topography would look much more like that of Venus than that of Mars. In most respect Venus is much more like Earth than Mars is.
In terms of environment, however, Mars is closer to Earth. Mars had oceans at one time, and they've since dried and it's become a cold desert. Venus has a surface temperature of 900 degrees, an atmosphere 100 times the thickness of ours, and clouds of sulfuric acid. And, as far as we know, it was always like that.

Answer 9

Mars was actually just like earth afew millenia ago. Mars lost all of its atmospheres so water couldn't get held to the planet and everything died from solar winds and thirst. Without the atmospheres im sure the oxygen would also be lost also. the reason it has alot of craters is because the atmospheres are gone and can't protect the planet

Answer 10

Mars is colder than Earth, and there is no liquid water, its so cold that even carbon dioxide freezes into the soil! But if we built air-tight buildings with heaters, yeah we could live there, but sorry, no fossils to date. Back in 1995 or so they thought they found a meteorite in Antarctica that contained what looked like bacterial remains, but I don't know that they've conclusively decided that was it. They're still trying to prove that liquid water once covered the surface as it does on Earth!

Answer 11

Mars has only 0.13% oxygen, and the pressure is 1% of Earth air pressure. This is so low, you would always need a space suit, or pressurized habitat. Radiation is also a problem, and its colder than Earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars
They thought they found bacteria in a meteorite from Mars, but it's not proven.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_on_Mars
Here is a good article about colonizing Mars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Mars