New Animation Shows How Mars was Like Earth Billions of Years Ago

By Nancy Atkinson - November 14, 2013 at 5:25 PM UTC | Planetary Science
mars-1.jpg

4 billion years ago, the atmosphere of Mars could have been rich in oxygen and thick enough and warm enough to support oceans of liquid water - a critical ingredient for life. A new animation from the

Goddard Space Flight Center

shows how the surface of Mars might have appeared during this ancient clement period. The artist's concept video, below, is based on evidence that Mars was once very different and perhaps very Earth-like.

This past summer,

a paper

studying the compositions of Martian meteorites found on Earth and data from NASA's rovers suggested that Mars had an oxygen-rich atmosphere very early in the history of the planet.

Scientists have long thought that the ancient riverbeds and what appear to be shorelines provide hints that Mars once supported oceans of water. But there's not much indication of how the Red Planet was stripped of its thick atmosphere, roughly 3.7 billion years ago.

The end of the video shows the

MAVEN spacecraft, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission

, orbiting Mars. This spacecraft is scheduled to launch on Nov. 18, 2013, and it will investigate how Mars lost its atmosphere. It should reach the planet in September 2014.

Below is another new video from NASA, featuring LeVar Burton talking about MAVEN.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com