re: Real climate cataclysm: Scientists Can No Longer Ignore Ancient Flooding Tales (Netflix)

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Avi Loeb Follow Dec 24 · 5 min read

No High-Rise Left Standing from Early Mars or Earth

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The latest analysis of data from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) indicates that Mars was rippled with rivers and ponds for the first half of its history. Based on the analogy with Earth, it is conventionally expected that Mars developed microbial life when it lost its atmosphere. In that case, the water on its surface evaporated and left a frozen desert. But if the development of intelligent life on Mars was accelerated by merely a factor of two relative to Earth, there could have been an advanced technological civilization on Mars a few billion years before humans appeared on Earth. Can we easily rule out this possibility?

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Since bio-mass or vegetation degrade rapidly in the absence of atmospheric pressure and liquid water, the most distinct relics would be abandoned roads and buildings of major cities. Some of this infrastructure could have been damaged by volcanic activity, which was most prominent in the first 1.5 billion years but is still ongoing according to new evidence. The base of the largest Volcano on Mars, Olympus Mons, covers an area of order the state of Missouri and the circular opening at its top is 65 kilometers across, about the size of Los Angeles. But even if we ignore damage from geological activity, the minimal agent of destruction would be asteroid impacts. The Jezero Crater itself is the product of a giant impactor.

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Planets like Mars or Earth could have given multiple births to technological civilizations that were a billion years apart and hence were not aware of each other. Like stable parents, the planets recovered from the environmental impact of these civilizations over time. We may have been separated in time from siblings that we never had the opportunity to meet and so we are unaware of their existence. Except for one caveat. If early Martians and earthlings ventured into space, some of their devices may still be functioning in the Solar System. In that case, old flying gadgets could be a source of some of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in reports from the Director of National Intelligence to the US Congress.

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