Quote:
Originally Posted by Falcman0o7
Mars was just like earth.
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Kind of...not enough gravity (only a third of Earths) to retain a thick atmosphere so it bled away into space.
I remember my kids watching the old "Captain Planet" TV cartoon show and hearing him give Venus as an example of what Earth was going to end up like.
Disregarding the fact that Venus is 40
million kilometers closer to the sun than the Earth...think of the difference on Earth between summer and winter, and that's only because of a small orbital change closer or further away...so it's no surprise that Venus is a hellish oven even though it's almost a twin of Earth in size.
Mars is much smaller so doesn't have the mass to retain a thick atmosphere.
Yet. If we get off our backsides and plan on a large scale, terraforming could be undertaken, but it's a long term project involving seeding the planet with engineered lichens and mosses to create oxygen and thicken things up a bit.