A Natural History of Mars 

The idea of life happening TWICE in a single solar system is incredibly exciting, even if the time wasn't right to both live at the same time

"We've only just recently begun to figure out some answers, thanks in large part to our curiosity and perseverance." I see what you did there. 😉

7:03 Small detail. The Sun close to the martian horizon, as depicted here, looks blue, not yellow as it does on Earth. That's because of the different atmosphere and types of dust particles suspended in that atmosphere that scatters red light more efficiently on Mars. It's also why the martian sky usually has a definite salmon pink color to it.

As a planetary scientist and long-time Eons fan, I cannot tell you how excited I am to see this episode 🤩 Thank you!!!!

It always blows my mind how Mars doesn't have water anymore, yet it is the primary source of Mars candy bars. The universe is a mysterious and magical place 🥰

Am I the only one who is always on the verge of tears learning about space? Like its so amazingly overwhelming and wonderful how huge this universe is and how small we really are... and how science has shown us so much truth to our place as a sentient species capable of understanding what we are seeing.

I’ve always been fascinated by Mars, I really hope Perseverance can find ancient microbial life so we know we’re not alone. 👽

Recent study based on observing marsquakes and seismic waves suggests that the outer core of Mars consists elements such as sulfur, oxygen, carbon and hydrogen but few iron. And its inner iron core is probably smaller than expected.

There is a theory floating around that we actually did find not just evidence of life but actual living microbes on Mars during the Viking Lander missions, and we accidentally killed it. The basics of it is this one scientist had the thought that its possible martian life adapted to metabolize hydrogen peroxide, and the viking soil samples did show the evidence that that couldve been the case but since the way the soil was being analyzed was to get heated in pure water that scientist asserts that we actually accidentally killed the possible life in that soil sample.

"...thanks in large part to our Curiosity and Perseverance..." We see what you did there...

Wow. I had no idea how the possibility of actual life on another planet would affect me till now. It's both beautiful and, in the event that it may have died out eons ago, incredibly bittersweet. I almost wanna cry.

There is an interesting possibility that terrestrial and Martian life are related. With the Late Heavy Bombardment, or earlier, our planets could exchange pieces of each other with microbes to travel on.

fun fact: using the words opportunity and insight to describe what machines allow us to do on Mars means more than meets the eye. In addition to the well publicized rover Opportunity, a piece if seismographic equipment put on Mars, a distinct mission from Opportunity, was called Insight

All the puns about the rovers etc were Terra-ble! I loved them.

Earth also has two planets worth of cores, so it's bound to be larger and last much longer than Mars. The glancing impact of Theia with the protoEarth that resulted in the Moon also combined both cores in the resulting Earth. That one event was so important for us to be here.

Anyone ever wonder what the first lifeform to contemplate the stars from Earth was?

My guess is if mars ever had life, it almost certainly still does. Now it might be purely microbial and kilometers below the surface, but I'd bet anything that something would remain.

P.S. these shows have been so lovely, for years. It is my hope shows like Eons receive funding for years more to come. You all teach in a delightful way.

the idea that there was once life on another planet nearby, but that we missed the chance to contact it, is so much sadder than the idea there's no other life in our solar system

Your videos are always A+. But, I'll give you an A++ for mentioning so many of the rovers. Haha

The scary thing I picked up from this is that, theoretically, Earth could lose its magnetosphere at some stage in the same way as Mars but it will take longer because of the planets size.

I recently learned about the Chromosome 2 Fusion event that resulted in humans having 46 instead of 48 chromosomes. I would love to learn more about it on a PBS Eons episode!

Wasn't expecting this channel to tread into PBS Space Time's territory, but I'm not complaining. I can never get enough space stuff. I'd love if you did a whole video like this on Venus too. though side note, the "Mars's core cooled because it's small" hypothesis has been definitively debunked by the Insight lander, which used seismic data to determine that Mars's core is most definitely still hot and molten. It is also more diffuse than Earth's however, meaning there might be a lot of non-metals like sulfur mixed in with the iron, hindering its ability to conduct electricity and generate a magnetic field.

"It's life, Jim--but not as we know it."

5:45 Imagine all the different science disciplines that had to collaborate to be able to figure out how old a Martian rock was!

I am soooo excited for this episode!!! But it'd be awesome if you could cover Venus next!

Roughly translated for any Martians. Ack Ack Ack Ack Ack, Ack Ack Ack.

The puns throughout this video were fantastic!

Trip to Mars to truly get a breath of fresh air away from Earth's GTA parody world does sound like an experience of a lifetime

Nice word play. Kudos to the script writer. 👍

I went to Vegas for two weeks no social media no news no nothing and now I get all these refreshing videos I’m just drowning in happiness tonight

I loved the video, but you could've done a Space Time-Eons crossover episode with this topic! Maybe an actual one could happen in the future? It'd make my day.

One of the best episodes you have ever made

Omg, can anyone handle the intonation patterns of this narrator?

Is it possible that the tidal forces the moon imposes on us squishes Earth's insides up enough to keep our core hot, thereby keeping our magnetic field active? If Mars had had a massive moon creating tidal forces could its insides still be hot, and still have a protective magnetosphere?

The remains of any type of life on Mars is something I would like to know before I die. We would be lucky enough to live in a solar system with two habitable planets, cementing the notion that there's life farther out there.

"Thanks in large part to our curiosity and perseverance" is the best double meaning I've heard recently. :)

I love how much fun y'all had with the script for this one

Can you imagine how many new questions will we have is they ever find microbes on mars that are proved to not be contamination? If they turn out to be somehow related to life on earth or something completely different altogether won't even matter! Both are equally mindblowing to me. And the implications this would have for fermi's question....

Loved the shoutout to the rovers Curiousity and Perseverance and Opportunity, as well as the lander Insight!

I recall reading that Mars' early atmosphere was twice as dense as Earth's--meaning it might have had a fizzy, carbonated ocean!

Powerful episode that should be seen by everyone on earth

i always wondered about it, thanks a lot for making this video

Absolutely in the Top five best channels on RU-vid!

Where are y'all ?

I never understood the reason why they drop the samples for them to be collected later. It is surely much easier to take the samples with and just collect them all from one place. I am sure there is a reason, contamination of other areas, loss of vehical, but none I can think of outway the huge task they have now given themselves.

Thank You I love PBS Eons . Fascinating.

Rarely does a video make me go WOW. Thank you for all your hard work.

This was not only a fabulous video with exciting information, but the information that the rover was atacking up rocks, for a later visit by robotic passengers to retreive them and deliver them back to earth, is ground breaking! This could mean the whole difference as to answering those questions! And with a large enough assortment of rocks, we could answer all kinds of questions that we have had for years asked! This is fabuloues news! And i just hopethat the second part of this plan comes to fruition before those that wanted to complete this second and vital step of the plan, ever gets finished! I know with covid and wars and regime changes and money issues, all things can end up going by the wayside long before thet retriever robot even starts to get built, and then we still have to get it to mars and hime again with its delicate cargo. And we are so many years from that happening still, just because that was an original plan, doesnt mean that it will come to pass. But i certainly pray it does. If not in my daughters lifetime, but my granddaughters lifetime then. And i hope someone is still around to care about this nission and is smart enough to be able to work with these samples and be able to do something other than just look at them and make poor determinations again! I wish i could ve here to see the pkans results, but at 58 years old, i wont live to see that happen. I hope i can get my daughter to care enough about it to keep the dream alive! Its not only curiostlity, but may hold information that is vital to this planets survival eventually! This is wxciting news though! Thank you!

There is no evidence that life exists anywhere in the Universe except for here on Earth. I hope we do find it someday. But for now, Earth is it. Earth is amazing. Please, let's take care of it.

I like the hypothesis that life is a natural consequence of chemical activity on developing planets, which suggests that life may be very common in the universe and takes root wherever there is a remotely "just right" combination of water and thermal activity, etc.

I honestly can’t believe it’s been two months since eon’s last upload😢

Gosh it’s been 2 months now. Is there any reason to we haven’t got a new upload? I miss pbs eons

I love PBS Eons so much! You guys make such amazing and videos. Thanks to this channel, I've built up an interest in paleontology. Please keep making more videos. 😊

This has become one of my favorite channels

Considering the cambrian explosion happened more than 3.5 billion years after the first single-celled organisms, i doubt martian life ever progressed beyond that. And considering that, i doubt they had the time to form creatures that could even try to resist changes in the enviroment It's very sad to see an (potentially) entirely new tree of life, all gone, simply because it wasn't born in the right place but then again, who am i to judge a different form of life, when all i can judge from is mine?

SO much better than mainstream TV ...thank you !

Thanks PBS eons for making awesome content and also puns.

00:01:23 Anyone else loved the dubble meaning of Curiosity and Perseverance?

I personally think Mars was so small that it couldn’t maintain itself like Earth can and it cooled off and dried up sooner. Because of this, perhaps Mars was able to reach a temperature suitable for life earlier than Earth did? But because of the above it all went away. Edit: Oh I also forgot to describe; apparently Earth had liquid water oceans right after the crust cooled due to how thick the atmosphere was. All the H2O was kept in liquid state despite being way above the boiling point due to the pressure from the atmosphere. I believe Mars was very similar and this is how it had water on it, and the cooling theory I said above applies.

I miss watching new eons episode 😭

I think it's great that you guys are venturing off Earth! 👌

2 months since the last upload, don’t tell me the best channel on RU-vid is going to stop uploading :(((

Props to the cameraman for choosing to birth millions of years ago and already going to Mars to video what happened, and also experiencing millions of years.

i love pbs eons so much! brings so much thought! such a carefully & informative video! ♥️

Life finds a way has got to be one of the most resilient quotes.

Its weird I never considered the full implications of Mars as a place. A place you could actually physically be. Despite the movies and rovers and everything my brain still categorized it as a sort of non place. Even though it definitely exists somewhere out there.

Why did you stop making full-length videos ?

Nice topic and change of pace. Very interesting information and questions. 🙂👍🌌

The surface and environments on Earth are pound for pound the most interesting amd varied by far. The tectonic plate activity, the vegetation

...does anyone still remember (and miss) my man Steve?

I was wondering why you guys haven't appeared in my feed, turns out y'all are on hiatus?

Fascinating!

I love the Jurassic park reference. Life indeed does find a way

Where’d you guys go?

Imagine a whole subterranean ecosystem underneath Mars' surface...

This is great. Thank you

Would love to see an episode on sea snakes, love the work y’all do!!

Interestingly enough Zhurong rover soft-landed on Mars a mere 3 months later after Perseverance Quite an exciting time we live in.

When I think about how old mars is and how long ago it was possibly habitable to some kind of life, I also think of how old life is on earth, all the species we know of that lived for MILLIONS of years before it went extinct or evolved more to change into something else... And I wonder what we don't know yet. There really could have been something there.

Wow, ok, this episode was surprisingly profound and poetic. Good job Michelle.

I was watching an eons video and thought "Oh how i miss Steve".

Het eons could you do similar videos on life beyond earth? Astrobiology anyone?

It must have taken eons to work all of those puns into the script.

Our planet's history is far from enough; we must study our whole solar system history, as an ecosystem of interacting beings. Thank you so much for talking about our elder brother Mars.

1:22 "curiosity and perseverance" nice reference! (it's the name of martian rovers shown on screen)

"Thanks to our Curiosity and Perseverance." I see what you did there! 😂

PLEASE create more content. It’s been far too long.

Didn't know "debris" had a plural form. I thought it's uncountable.

".....thanks to our curiosity and perseverance"...that was nice

i remember reading somewhere once that some scientists believe that Earth's dynamo effect might also be contributed to by our moon and the tug of their gravity of each other. is there any reason to believe that Mars' core might've stopped being so active because they didn't have that other body to provide the necessary friction to keep the reaction going? I am fascinated by this idea

Been a few months… Earth has only been around 4-billion-ish years… did we run out of things to talk about?

Hats off to the engineers , scientists and all those that developed and deployed the machines that are exploring Mars !!!!!!!!!

Keep up the good work PBS Eons.

Where are you guys?

Welp, i *was* doing work... but priorities 😅

It was born too small, couldn't catch up, and got left behind. That's what happened to it. But... Awesome JP callback, LOL! Thanks, Eons & PBS, for all you do!

The best part of being a eons fan is the science teacher will always put on your videos

Astrophysics undergrad here, I did a presentation/talk on this exact topic at a public outreach event last year. Covered a lot of the same talking points. Fascinating topic

The problem I have with the "maybe it's just because Mars is smaller than Earth" magnetic field loss theory is that Ganymede still has a magnetic field, even though it's 3/4 the size of Mars.