Recently, in the field of astronomy and aerospace, the most discussed is the Martian time window. We all know that Mars is the neighbor of the earth, and it is also the most explored planet after humans walked out of the earth. Since the distance between Mars and the earth is a constantly changing value, we should choose when Mars is the closest to the earth when we launch the Mars rover. This time is called the Mars window.
Every 25 months, that is, two years and two months, a new Martian window will appear. At this time, humans will launch probes to Mars, but in the past, there was nothing my country could do to detect Mars? And this year’s Mars window, the biggest hot spot is that my country has also launched a Mars exploration program, launching its own Tianwen-1.
Why is Mars the most lively exploration planet for mankind? Many people may think that it is because Mars is closer to us and easier to explore. This is actually only one reason, another more important reason is to figure out why Mars has become like this?
Some people may think that Mars has been such a red desert planet since its birth. You must know that in ancient times, Mars had an unusual position in the eyes of the ancients. It shone red in the night sky. Therefore, it was called the planetary planet or Mars in China. In the West, it was because of its red color. Known as Mars, the god of war.
So why is Mars a red planet? In fact, when the human probe landed on Mars, this mystery was revealed. It is a red planet mainly because the surface is covered by hematite. These hematites are actually a kind of iron oxide.
Compared with the earth, Mars is also a terrestrial planet, but the mass and volume are much less than that of the earth. The mass of Mars is only one-ninth that of the earth, its volume is less than one-seventh of the earth, and its diameter is only half of the earth. Although there is a significant difference in size between the two, Mars and Earth also have many similarities.
Early astronomers observed Mars through astronomical telescopes and found that there were some criss-cross lines on Mars. People at the time called these lines the Martian Canal. People think that there may be some kind of intelligent life on Mars, and they “dug” these canals. But later with the landing of the Mars probe, what we saw was an extremely desolate desert planet.
There is no water flowing on the surface of Mars, there are arid red deserts everywhere, and there is no so-called “Martian Canal”. Early Mars exploration data made scientists mistakenly believe that Mars is born so desolate and without any vitality. However, as the exploration continued to deepen, the orbiter discovered some water ice at the poles of Mars, which shows that Mars is currently at the poles. There is still water in the area.
At the same time, the probe also found a large number of ravines, canyons and basins on the surface of Mars. These places have been eroded by water. There are indications that there was a large amount of water resources on the surface of Mars. Therefore, scientists put forward a bold conjecture, that is, Mars was also a beautiful ecological planet long ago. Its surface was covered by ocean. Like the earth, it is also an oceanic world.
If Mars used to be an ocean world, then why is it now a desert planet full of red sand? What happened to make Mars the way it is now? Time cannot go back, and it is impossible for us to travel through time and space to go back in time to understand the reasons for the great changes in Martian ecology.
Although we cannot go back to the past to understand the history of Mars, through continuous exploration of Mars and continuous advancement in science, scientists have some guesses about Mars’s transformation from an ocean world to a desert world.
The birth of Mars and the Earth are basically synchronized, both were born 4.6 billion years ago. About 4 billion years ago, because Mars was on the outer side of the earth and farther away from the sun, it cooled down one step before the earth. After cooling down, the water vapor in the Martian atmosphere began to condense when it was cold, forming rain and condensed into an ocean on the surface of Mars.
The Earth’s oceans may be formed a little later than Mars. After the Earth’s oceans were formed, early primitive life was born soon. This shows that there is a high probability that Mars, which first gave birth to the ocean, also produced primitive life. At this time, Mars and the Earth are no different from space, and they are both the same beautiful blue planet.
If it develops according to the same pattern, Mars today may also give birth to its own intelligent life, Martians, and also form a Martian civilization. However, the ecology of Mars continued to deteriorate until it became the current desert planet. What happened in this? Many people think that Mars has become the way it is now, thinking that it may have been a huge asteroid that struck Mars, which brought about catastrophic ecological changes.
However, through continuous exploration of Mars, we found that this possibility is not very high. Although there are some relatively large craters on Mars, this is not the main reason for the dramatic changes in the Martian ecology. You know, there are also some particularly huge craters on the surface of the earth, such as the Chicxulub crater, which is located in Yucatan, Mexico, with a width of about 483 kilometers.
Another example is the Wilkes Land crater, which has a diameter of more than 240 kilometers, and the Friedberg meteorite, which was formed more than 2 billion years ago, and its current diameter is 380 kilometers. We must know that in more than 2 billion years, after constant wind and sand, the crater will continue to become smaller. We can imagine how huge this Friedberg meteorite was at the beginning, and the huge meteorite that caused it will inevitably be very huge.
These huge meteorites have not completely collapsed the Earth’s ecology and turned the Earth into a desert planet. It can be seen that the scale of the crater found on Mars is not enough to completely destroy the Martian ecological environment. Scientists have speculated that Mars has become like this. The important reason may be that Mars does not have a strong magnetic field to protect it.
The magnetic field is very important for an ecological planet. We all know that the earth has a very strong magnetic field, which covers the earth for thousands of kilometers. The strong magnetic field can effectively protect the atmosphere so that it will not escape to space. In the universe, there are powerful kinds of radiation, including stellar wind radiation and other cosmic radiation.
For planets in the habitable zone, the solar wind is the greatest threat. Because of the protection of the earth’s strong magnetic field, the impact of the solar wind on the earth’s atmosphere is limited. As long as the atmosphere is not lost, the oceans on the earth’s surface will not be lost. But Mars is different. It does not have a strong magnetic field, only a very weak magnetic field.
The weak magnetic field cannot stop the invasion of the solar wind, so the atmosphere of Mars is constantly lost. As the atmosphere of Mars 40 becomes thinner and thinner, the solar wind can invade the surface of Mars in large quantities and begin to continuously decompose water, so a large number of water molecules are continuously lost to space. . With the passage of time, the water resources on the surface of Mars are gone, leaving only a large number of traces washed by water. They show us that Mars was also glorious.
Of course, Mars has become like this, although we feel sad and regretful, but from another perspective, this may also be a great fortune for mankind. We can imagine that if Mars is also protected by a very strong magnetic field, then it, like the Earth, may continue to be beautiful.
After continuous evolutionary evolution, life on Mars may also give birth to intelligent life and form Martian civilization. If this is the case, then there may be two intelligent civilizations in the solar system, human civilization and Martian civilization. As the saying goes, one mountain cannot tolerate two tigers. After both civilizations can get out of their home planets, can they still live in peace after they both know the other’s existence?
Friends, do you think two civilizations in the same star system can live in peace? You are welcome to leave a comment below to discuss and express your own opinions and opinions.