Thursday, June 14, 2012

A Theory on the origin of Mars

I love to watch shows on the Discovery & Science channels, especially those that deal with how the planets and stars were & are formed. I've read a number of articles about the planets as well, mainly from encyclopedias and Wikipedia. On one of these occasions, on a show about Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, I thought I noticed a couple of things that weren't addressed in the theories about how the planets were formed. I did some more research on my own, and I still didn't find anything that addressed these items I noticed. Therefore, I've decided to put my theory out there as a message in a bottle just in case it's something new. However, I have no reason to believe that this theory hasn't been considered & rejected previously. I just can't find anything. So here it goes.

I think that it's possible that the reason for Mars' current planetary characteristics and possibly the formation of the asteroid belt may be, in some way, connected to theories about Mercury's formation & the theory of how Earth's Moon was formed. I'm sorry for the long, run-on, sentence, but here's the break down.

I remember reading or watching that scientists believe that Mercury is pretty much just the inner & outer core of the planet. They speculate that the rest of Mercury's mass was blown off by the power of the Sun. This lead me to notice that Mars was very close to the size of Mercury rather than the size of Earth & Venus. I then speculated that something similar had happened to Mars. I think that Mars' current planetary state is because of a cataclysmic event, like an impact, that ripped the outer layers off the planet. This left Mars, like Mercury, with its mass being composed of the inner cores of itself. I think the huge canyon/scar on Mars' surface is either evidence of this impact or the result of the turmoil occurring on the planet as a result of the event.

Also, I think the ejected material of the Mars' event came to one of two ends. In one case I think that the Mars' ejecta, and that of the possible object that impacted Mars' became the asteroid belt. In another theory I think it's also possible that the object that caused the event on Mars' might have come from the asteroid belt. I also think that if this was the case that part of the Mars ejecta is what impacted the Earth to form our Moon.

That is pretty much my theory. I've not done any investigation to determine if any of it is possible let alone true. However, I'll continue to look into it to see what I can find to support it. If anyone else reads this & agrees, I'd enjoy your comments. I also solicit comments from those who think I'm cracked on this matter. I welcome all civil discourses in this matter. Any comments that degenerate into childish name calling will be removed.

By the way. I'm not trained as a scientist or cosmologist. I'm a computer programmer with varied interests. This theory just came to me, and I wanted to put it out while it was clear in my mind. Thanks. ;o)

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