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SALT LAKE CITY — What if Mars had its own biosphere? A software engineer rendered a conception that shows what that might look like.
NASA software engineer Kevin Gill created a series of living Mars conceptions while fine-tuning some software in an effort to learn about the planet and be creative, he told Discovery News.
The images show Mars as we've never seen it in observations of the planet: with a biosphere and a thick atmosphere supporting clouds.
Gill created the images of a living Mars as seen from 10,000 km above its surface, using elevation data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to surmise where water would have been.
Gill, who admits he the image are not an exhaustive scientific study, said he drew inspiration from Earth's textures using a NASA Blue Marble Next Generation. For areas near volcanoes and the equator, he copied textures from Australia and the Sahara. For northern and southern areas, he drew inspiration from the tundra of northern Russia. Meantime, the tropical and subtropical areas utilized textures from South American rainforests.
"I had been doing similar models of Earth and have seen attempts by others of showing life on Mars, so I figured I'd give it a go," Gill told Discovery News.
The engineer's assumption of water being on the Red Planet is not far-fetched, either. Scientists just announced the discovery of a 2 billion-year-old Martian rock in the Sahara desert that contained 6,000 parts per million of water.
In early December, NASA scientists reported that Opportunity rover had been treading on water-formed clays during its nine-year mission on Mars.
