Scientists have found new evidence to support the presence of large oceans on Mars in the past. Published in the June 14 issue of Nature, the research suggests that changes in Mars’ orientation with respect to its axis might be responsible for large variations in the topography of shoreline-like features on the planet. Scientists have studied these features for more than 30 years, and the current study presents a new, alternative explanation for how they formed. Geophysicists have discovered that irregularities in proposed Martian shorelines might be explained by surface deformation from “true polar wander.” Through this phenomenon, Mars' spin axis and poles shifted by nearly 3,000 kilometers along the surface sometime within the past 2 or 3 billion years. Spinning planets bulge at their equator and solid surfaces deform differently than liquid sea surfaces.

As a result, surface topography of the shorelines deformed as the planet’s rotation axis shifted. In the 1990s, NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft mapped the Martian topography and found that ancient shorelines aged between 2 and 4 billion years, known as Deuteronilus and Arabia, vary in elevation by about a half of a mile and more than a mile and a half, respectively. In contrast, changes in shoreline elevation on Earth are much gentler, leading many experts to argue against their connection to past oceans on Mars.

View: Full Article | Source: Physorg

i dont understand the significance or relevance about this topic.

Understanding a planet's life cycle will help us better understand Earth's probable natural faith.

The earths natural faith hmmmm. i still dont get it id rather feed the hungry with the enormous resources spent on these frivolous theories.

I agree, let's focus on the now. Not like any of that will happen in our lifetime anyway. Sure, we can help our future generations prepare, but why worry about the future more than the present? Explain that. That's a mystery for you!

I don't think the problem is the money spent on pure science it is the money spent on war that takes food and shelter from the poor. Why do you waste you time going to pseudo science site rather than working on programs to feed the poor if you feel like that?

good point, unfortunately at the moment i am a slave to a system that i did not create. I conform buy spending more than i make and being extremely wasteful. By the year 2037 i should retire and have ample time to help the needy if im not cripple. The purpose to my presence is unexplained mystery posted at the begining of the website. do you think an ocean on another planet is a unexplained mystery? in the we are both entitled to are own opinions.

water is all over the universe, oceans on other planets no longer supprises me... almost to the point I expect it heh

they used to teach there was no water up there

I think the point of this is saying that if there was once huge liquid oceans on mars... WHERE DID THEY GO!?!?

THAT is the mystery... and there are also some "holes" on mars where we cannot see into(see here), we can't even see the walls of the hole meaning that it is either overhanging or completley vertical... and they probably lead into a sub-terranean cave system which could be where some of that water went. IF this is true, there could be an entire eco-system hidden beneath the surface of the planet. At the very least, there could be single celled life. And the discovery of life on mars will drastically increase the possibility that coimplex and intelligent life exists elsewhere.

i think there was once life on mars probably during the same time there was water hnnjsm thats the reason people are intrested in things like this becuase water = life and if we find life on another planet we can probly make peace but it is kind of stupit studying extraterrestial life consistently when the goverment knows the answers to r questions about them

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/spotlight/20070612.html

with these temps during daytime...why isn't more water vapor and carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere from frozen ices? or is it? they say mars is warming....that fact was posted in another thread...

even in the shade it is still near 90!!!! it's 92 right now here in Ohio....

These are Earthlike temps, so there has to have been at one time, oceans, and lakes..rivers??? Mars was once more Earthlike than it is now...what happened????

Mars is an average of 50 million miles farther away from the sun, but still has Earthlike temps...something is wrong or went wrong.....this was an earth at one time....if mars has the water ice in the amounts that have been given, then there had to have been oceans...just like earth...too much evidence of past water in the form of oceans and lakes, rivers and shores..

In my opinion, Mars once had blue skies and oceans..maybe only 60% of earth's atmosphere but more than enough to start life as we know it....it had to....with found facts and still earthlike temps in the day, something went wrong in the past...

Mars has dust devils...a common occurance here on Earth...mini tornadoes, with out the storms..white water ice crystal clouds, that look like earth clouds, ice caps of water. 24 hr day, 24 degree axis tilt..and how about the hurricane like cloud formation near the north pole of mars a few years ago????..too many similarities and I am beginning to think Mars was Earth once, but some cosmic or natural event wiped out the atmosphere. Just my opinion....

Yea let’s drop space exploration and feed the hungry here and now. Lets ignore the fact of massive volcanoes, nuclear weapons, meteors, global warming, solar flares, out brake of some deadly virus or any of the other 1,000 that could end life as we know it here on earth and make sure everyone has a full belly and a iPod. That way when the end comes and wipes out all life on earth we can all sit around the camp fire singing songs of love peace and joy.

Personally I would like to know at least if there is another hunk of rock that we might be able to move to. Otherwise we are all doomed.

Play nice already! This thread isn't about who's right or wrong, whos a hippie and who's not... Read the Subject line New evidence points to oceans on Mars, Space and Astronomy theres what you should be talking about and not firing witty internet replys at each other from half way around the globe... (I know i'm not any better at the moment for doing this but still)

A passing celestial body more massive than Mars may have stolen a vast majority of it along with most of its atmosphere. Mars may have been captured from outside our solar system or displaced from another orbital position. In either case, a near collision with a larger planet, say Earth, may have robbed it of any surface gases and liquids. Of course, volcanic activity, earthquakes, and mountain-building would have also occurred to both planets. The moons of Mars, if in fact they ever were moons, look like they've been through hell and back.

Another theory is that Mars was once a moon to a much larger planet that now exists as the asteroid belt, and the moons of Mars are actually left over pieces from its mother planet. However, I think this theory has been disproven.

Immanuel Velikovsky theorized that Mars once occupied the current orbital path of Venus, but was later displaced by Venus to its new orbit between Earth and the asteroid belt. Unfortunately, his theories have long been ridiculed by mainstream science.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worlds_in_Collision