Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to Mars does not have a bipolar magnetosphere

re: Mars does not have a bipolar magnetosphere
Michael Gmirkin — (archived)

Hmm, interesting, however what holds true today may not have held in the past. IF at some point in the past Mars had a substantial atmosphere, which has since become rarified, it's possible that it may also have had a more active magnetic field in the past as well.

Considering that the model I proposed pretty much says that the Spiders are scarred features on the surface of the planet, they may well have been created in the mid to ancient past when the planet was more active than it is today.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast31jan_1.htm

Notably from above: "Although Mars no longer has a substantial magnetosphere, scientists think it once did and that the remnants of it still exist. In 1998 magnetometers on MGS discovered a network of magnetic loops arrayed across Mars's southern hemisphere. Locally, the magnetic fields arch over the surface like umbrellas, hundreds of km high. "If you were standing on Mars in one of these areas," says Mitchell, "you would measure a magnetic field about as strong as Earth's -- a few tenths of a gauss." Elsewhere on the planet the magnetic field is 100 to 1000 times weaker."

My point being that at one point in Mars' history it may well have been magnetically active, moreso than today. Leading theory being that as it cooled and solidified from whatever creation event(s), it lost much of its magnetosphere. But up until that point, it did have one, most likely. So sayeth Nasa. It's likely during that time that the "spiders" formed preferentially along those magnetic bands... And I believe we'll see that "new" Spider formation may be fairly rare today. Rather we are simply seeing the hiding and re-revelation of pre-existing scarred-surface "spiders" created in the mid to ancient past. The blackening streaks may still happen actively as dust devils trail black charred soil over the magnetic banded regions, just as they do in other regions...

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