The Full History of Mars: 4.5 Billion Years of the Red Planet

Four and a half billion years ago, a small world formed out of the dust around a young Sun. It may once have had lakes, rivers and perhaps a northern sea. Then it lost its magnetic shield, most of its air and nearly all of its surface water. This is the full biography of Mars: how it was born, how it lived, how it changed, how humans spent thousands of years learning to read it, and what the robots exploring it today are finding. From the Big Bang and the dust disk that built the planets, to the oldest Martian meteorites, the great northern lowlands, the Tharsis volcanoes and Valles Marineris; from Babylonian sky-watchers, Kepler, Huygens, Schiaparelli and Lowell to Mariner 4, Viking, Spirit and Opportunity, Curiosity, InSight, Perseverance and Ingenuity, and the missions now on their way. Scenes of ancient Mars are labelled RECONSTRUCTION or ARTIST CONCEPT on screen; debated ideas, such as a northern ocean, are presented as debates. Reconstructions are original Blender renders built on real NASA elevation data (MOLA) and Viking colour mosaics. Narration uses a synthetic voice. Independent production; NASA, ESA and other institutions do not endorse it. Which chapter of Mars's story surprised you most? Tell us below. RESEARCH SOURCES (selected) NASA Mars Exploration: https://science.nasa.gov/mars/ NASA/JPL Perseverance mission: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars... USGS geologic map of Mars (Tanaka et al. 2014): https://doi.org/10.3133/sim3292 MAVEN atmosphere loss (Jakosky et al. 2017): https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aai7721 NSSDC Mars fact sheet: https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary... CHAPTERS 00:00 The Lake 01:19 The Full History of Mars 02:12 Ashes of Stars 07:59 The Stranded Embryo 17:43 The Blue Age 29:46 The Great Unravelling 41:12 The Long Cold 47:32 Watchers of the Red Star 58:12 Contact 73:06 Jezero, October 2026 81:39 The Next Window 87:04 Credits Short clips labelled AI-GENERATED ILLUSTRATION on screen are AI-generated visualizations, not mission imagery. CREDITS Images and footage under Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 2.0 / 4.0): ESO (incl. L. Calçada, M. Kornmesser, B. Tafreshi); ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO); ESA/Webb and ESA/Hubble (NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI and the named image processors, incl. J. DePasquale, A. Pagan, J. Olmsted, M. Robberto); NOIRLab/NSF/AURA (incl. R. Proctor, Big Astronomy); NASA/JPL-Caltech; S. Andrews (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA); Lunar and Planetary Institute; Andrea Luck; Kevin Gill; Wellcome Collection; seismic data: InSight Mars SEIS Data Service (IPGP, JPL, CNES, ETHZ, ICL, MPS, ISAE, LPG, MFSC), doi:10.18715/SEIS.INSIGHT.XB_2016. Full titles, authors, licences and sources appear in the end credits of this video. Licences: creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 and /by/4.0 Also courtesy (public domain): NASA/JPL-Caltech, NASA Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio, NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS, NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona (HiRISE), NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU, USGS Astrogeology, NASA/GSFC MOLA Science Team; historical images courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CC0) and public-domain archives. Short clip labelled AI-GENERATED ILLUSTRATION is an AI-generated visualization supplied by the channel. MUSIC 'Hymn to the Dawn', 'Celestial', 'Decoherence', 'Adrift Among Infinite Stars', 'Eyes In The Void', 'Aurora', 'Hiraeth', 'The Long Dark', 'Passage of Time', 'Discovery', 'Artemis', 'Titan' by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au Echoes of Time v2 Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... Lost Frontier Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... Public-domain recordings: Holst, Mars (Skidmore College Orchestra, via Musopen); Respighi, Pines of Rome II (US Army Band); Respighi, Pines of Rome IV (US Army Band); Dvorak, Goin' Home (US Air Force Band); Bach, Air (Air Force Strings); Thurston, Time Travels (US Air Force Band); Satie, Gymnopedie No. 1 (Robin Alciatore, via Musopen). #Mars #RedPlanet #Space