No time to read all the thread at the mo, so I don't know if this has been suggested yet.

What if... Instead of Mars having been a moon of a larger now-destroyed planet, how about combining the masses of Mars and the asteroid belt.

What I'm getting at is... Perhaps the asteroid belt is the matter that was ejected from Mars AFTER something collided with it. The net effect would be that Mars would lose enough mass to be unable to hold an atmosphere any longer. Over time it would recover it's spherical shape, albeit in a much reduced size. The change in mass would probably also mean a change in orbit distance around the sun, as it came back to some sort of orbital equilibrium.

End result would be a smaller planet and a debris field we now call the asteroid belt.

The obvious implication from this is... If Mars was bigger and more massive, would it then have had an atmosphere, and possibly life... perhaps even an advanced civilization?.... And what was the disaster that destroyed a planet's life-bearing potential and civilization?


Just a thought

Originally posted by mikesingh
I strongly feel that the Asteroid Belt was a planet having a very advanced civilization which blew up due to some experiment which went awry.

Can you say Death Star.

Originally posted by mikesingh
The Atlanteans could have been the last remnants of this civilisation which had migrated to Earth thousands of years before this catastrophe.

Don't you mean Alderanians?

Originally posted by mikesingh
Now some will say, prove it. I can't, though I wish I could. But can someone prove that the universe started with the Big Bang? So all is theory and conjecture. We don't even know how the moon got here!

Search your feelings mikesingh

I think that it was a Planet.It had advanced life.Just like Mars.The race was intelligent.Interacting with Extraterrestrials.And the race was not so nice.Liked greed and other negative feelings....And got into a war.The planet was destroyed in war for what ever reason they did.Then knocking mars off of its orbit... Thats my opinion.I like talking about this stuff.So interest me reply or tell me something i do not know.

Interesting thread - a lot of what has been said here is contained within the impact and exit event. This is a wide-ranging theory that incorporates the destruction of a planet via a collision with Mars. This planet then disintegrated ...and became the asteroid belt. As I said, this is only a small part of what is described as a 'chronological series of events' that make up the entire theory. Detailed explanations of how, why and where the impact occurred on the surface of Mars is also discussed. More info is at www.theimpactandexitevent.com
I'll keep dropping by to see if you guys have any thoughts on the theory.
Chips

Someone also commented in an earlier post that "We don't even know how the moon got here!".
The impact and exit event also covers this. The creation of the moon occurred following the 'exit' event suggested by the author. Looking at the way he puts his argument(s) his version of events is quite plausible. The creation of the moon via 'the impact and exit event' is the last in a series of major, inter-related events that (it is suggested) took place across the solar system. The theory suggests that each event was a direct consequence of another, equally huge event that had previously occurred (hence the chronology).
Chips

OK - this is how it is: the asteroid belt was part of our Moon that was left behind from mass-driving it into Earth's orbit. This is why we always see the same side of the Moon - because it's only half a planet(oid?). This is probably why there's that great gash in the side of Mars as well (Valles Marines or whatever) and possibly why Mars is in the condition it is now.

Who wouldn't like this to be true?

My son says it was the planet "Alderon."
May the Force be with you (farce in this case).