A View of Mars 4 Billion Years Ago:

After hearing about the rovers, satellites, and all of the upcoming manned missions to Mars, have you thought to yourself, "gee, I wonder what a day would look like on that planet"? If you are a science enthusiast, chances are, you probably have. I"m afraid that it wouldn"t be too exciting. Unless you were fortunate enough to see one of the planet"s massive dust storms, mostly, a day on Mars would look like a lot of reddish dirt (still though, it"s alien reddish dirt, so that"s kind of neat). However, it would be a completely different story if you saw it 4 billion years ago.

It"s not just everyday people who spend their days imagining life on alien worlds. NASA and the people at Conceptual Image Lab have been thinking a lot about Mars as well. In fact, they thought about it so much that they decided to make a video of Mars from 4 billion years ago. This is, as NASA puts it, “one of the most complex animations [they have] ever produced”. The video (which can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKPrwY0Ycno) is designed to help scientists who are working on the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission, which launches on the 18th of November. It will look at the gases that are currently on the upper atmosphere of Mars to determine the change within its climate.

To read more about what Mars was like, see:
http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/a-view-of-mars-4-billion-years-ago/

Image source:
http://ipy.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.html