Timeline for Reversion of a Terraformed Mars
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
7 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 6, 2020 at 18:49 | answer | added | Michael Stachowsky | timeline score: 3 | |
| Jul 5, 2020 at 18:15 | comment | added | AlexP | To give you an example here on Earth. About 5 or 6 millions of years ago, the Mediterranean went through an episode of extreme dessication. It happened here on Earth, in a very well studied place. We still don't know if the dessication was (almost) complete or only partial, where it was one long episode or a series of shorter episodes, how long it took for the sea to go dry, and so on. We know it happened, we know it was severe, and that's about it. And the Mediterranean is not on another world. | |
| Jul 5, 2020 at 18:12 | comment | added | AlexP | "How far in the past would maintenance of the planet have needed to stop for Mars to end up looking like it does now again by this time?" Sorry, we have no better answers than "millions of years". Maybe ten, maybe a hundred, maybe a few hundred millions of years. We will find out a better answer only when we send a team of geologists on Mars and they start dating the geological features on the planet. (continued...) | |
| Jul 5, 2020 at 18:03 | comment | added | Sam D. Jones | Question of whether a civilization can last so long aside, the question is how long would it take for such a terraforming to be completely undone. A few million? 50 million? 500 million? How far in the past would maintenance of the planet have needed to stop for Mars to end up looking like it does now again by this time. | |
| Jul 5, 2020 at 17:50 | comment | added | AlexP | Solar wind is a problem on a geological timescale. It will take Mars millions of years to go from a lush Earth-like to a barren dry desert. Effects will be measurable after a few hundred thousand years. For comparison, the entire history, from the dawn of civilization to our hypermodern days, is only about 5,000 years. Geological time is vastly longer than historical time, which is vastly longer than human lifetime. In other words, there is no way that a civilization will endure on anything like the timescale required for Mars to lose its water and atmosphere. | |
| Jul 5, 2020 at 15:34 | history | notice added | HDE 226868♦ | Hard Science | |
| Jul 5, 2020 at 11:05 | history | asked | Sam D. Jones | CC BY-SA 4.0 |