The findings, which are published in Nature, have important implications for our understanding of how Mars evolved. Billions of years ago, the planet may have had a thicker atmosphere that allowed liquid water to flow on the surface.
This thicker atmosphere may have been kept in place by a protective magnetic field, like the one Earth has. However, Mars lacks such a field today. Scientists have wondered whether the loss of this magnetic field led to the red planet losing its atmosphere to space over time and becoming the cold, dry desert it is today.
From residual magnetization in the crust, we think that Mars did once have a magnetic field, possibly from a core structure similar to that of Earth. However, scientists think that the core must have cooled and stopped moving at some point in its history.
More likely is the simple fact that Mars is closer in size and mass to The Moon, rather than The Earth
Mars is about twice the size of Earth’s Moon which makes it half as volumous as earth. With that in mind it’s not hard to imagine earth absorbing roughly a moons mass worth of hot angry rock would not increase the ambient temp in the core.
Yeah a lot of that impact energy is still retained as heat. Also it’s though the collision that caused the moon was with an object about the size of Mars.
Astrophysics is a hobby. It is not my field but to my understanding it was a Mars ish size object and that’s how we ended up with 2/3 of it folded into Earth and 1/3 plus some of Earths mass ejected into space to coalesce into the moon?
Mind you, I’m basing this off of some graphics I’ve seen and papers I’ve read years ago. Let me know if any of that sounds incorrect cuz I am not an authority.
Saw a short on that the other day. Current understanding is that the Earth’s mantle formed the Moon and Theia formed Earth’s core. Maybe it also brought water to Earth.