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It took billions of years for atmospheric oxygen to accumulate on Earth.
by fucking_tragedy 7y ago
It took billions of years for atmospheric oxygen to accumulate on Earth.
- CydeWeys 7y agoYeah, but most of that was waiting around for oxygen-releasing life to evolve. We could create an oxygen atmosphere on Mars much more quickly than that, because we'd be sending life explicitly for that purpose that's ready now, and we'd also be importing gases and digging up in-situ resources and turning them into gas.
- fucking_tragedy 7y ago> Yeah, but most of that was waiting around for oxygen-releasing life to evolve. No, it wasn't. Photosynthesis that released O2 evolved relatively quickly, and was more efficient than other forms of photosynthesis. Then it took another billion years for oxygen to accumulate in the atmosphere. Mind you, we had an entire planet with oceans teeming with photosynthetic life. That will be next to impossible to replicate on Mars. There are two oxygen sinks on Earth that reacted with oxygen released from photosynthesis: the first was the ocean, the other was minerals on land. This is the reason that it took so long for atmospheric oxygen to accumulate. Mars will have a lot of oxidizable minerals and compounds that will react with oxygen before it can accumulate in its atmosphere. Even then, it will escape into space without a sufficient magnetosphere to trap an atmosphere.