Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday
on TwitterWe keep sending missions to Mars with the key
objective to search for past or present life. But what if a huge
impact early in the Red Planet’s history hindered any future
possibility for life to thrive? Recent studies into the Martian
“crustal dichotomy” indicate the planet was struck by a very
large object, possibly a massive asteroid. Now researchers
believe that this same impact may have scrubbed any chance for
life on Mars, effectively making the planet sterile. This
asteroid may have penetrated the Martian crust so deep that it
damaged the internal structure irreparably, preventing a strong
magnetic field from enveloping the planet. The lack of a Mars
magnetosphere thereby ended any chance for a nurturing
atmosphere… Mars looks odd. Early astronomers noticed it, and
today’s observatories see it every time they look at the red
globe. Mars has two faces. One face (the northern hemisphere) is
composed of barren plains and smooth san