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RhymesWith_DoorHinge t1_iwvl5vf wrote

That's only a quarter as deep as earth's oceans. That's pretty interesting if true.

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Exploding_Antelope t1_iwvlq0h wrote

Well Mars is only a third the size so it would roughly track as a ratio, no?

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RhymesWith_DoorHinge t1_iww4rdl wrote

Good point. Just seems weird to have such shallow oceans, as an earthling.

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DWright_5 t1_iwwc925 wrote

I know, right? 300 meters? That could evaporate after a couple of hot July days

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PyramidBusiness t1_iwxq9sk wrote

It's actually about 1/12 as deep as earths oceans are on average but it is close to a fifth the depth of the arctic.

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StrangeTangerine1525 t1_iwzwf93 wrote

Not a third the size, it has 10% the mass, Mars is ten times smaller than Earth, with about a third of the surface area.

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Mt_Arreat t1_iwwfhu7 wrote

Earth’s oceans are a lot deeper than 1,200m on average. Globally the average is nearly 3,700m. It’s 8% as deep.

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Kelend t1_iwx231j wrote

>That's only a quarter as deep as earth's oceans.

Right now, but not when mars had oceans.

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themonkeymoo t1_iwx8nsw wrote

No; not right now, either. It's a lot loser to 1/12; Earth's average ocean depth is ~3700m.

That may have been shallower at some point in the very distant past (which, to be fair, also describes the last time Mars had surface water), but for as long as Earth has had continents it's probably been within rounding error of that value.

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asmara1991man t1_iww9g4p wrote

So does that mean if there was water there humans could have breathed normally there?

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LurkerInSpace t1_iwwynta wrote

It would need to have ~100 millibar partial pressure of oxygen to be breathable - with at least an extra 20 millibars of inert gases (or more oxygen).

Without biology oxygen doesn't stick around, so as with the early Earth the atmosphere was probably a mix of carbon dioxide and methane.

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