Was there life ever on Mars?

[MaxCathedral]

With two ice caps and nothing in between one wonders what happened to the rest of the water.

 

Presumedly asteroids and other factors destroyed the atompshere on Mars reducing it to what it is today.

 

But was there teeming life on Mars at one time?

 

Enquiring minds what to know.

[YT2095]

well MY Guesstimate would be that it was too warm at the equatrorial regions (red color allows IR light, therefore heat) and so the water evaporated and condensed in areas where it WASN`T so hot (in comparison) namely the poles as they are a wee bit further away fron the sun and it`s light at an angle has to penetrate more atmospheric gasses, making it cooler also.

that model seems to make sense to me anyway

[JaKiri]

MaxCathedral said in post # :

Presumedly asteroids and other factors destroyed the atompshere on Mars reducing it to what it is today.

 

The current thinking is that it's the lack of magnetic field. Without a significant one (like the earth's) the atmosphere is just ripped off by the solar wind.

 

And no, I don't think there was ever life on mars.

[Giles]

Mars is also no longer seismically active is it? A lot of ideas about early life revolve around sulphur metabolism (e.g. hydrothermal vents). If the useful stuff is lying around, bound up in rocks instead of in solution it makes life less likely.

 

(NB I'm speculating wildly here)

[JaKiri]

Mars is pretty dead, as far as internal activity goes.

 

It probably was quite wild (see: Olympus Mons)

[juan]

the martians could be living underground.

[aman]

With the evidence that shows there may have been an atmosphere and water on Mars for maybe milennia, this at a minimum might be enough time for life to show itself. If life was seeded from space debris with the right components to save time then life could form. I don't think it would be around long enough to become more than very simple forms. It seems to take on the order of millions of years for life to advance to mobile and aware judging from what we know of Earth and it's hard to imagine a scenario that makes this possible on Mars.

Just aman