Once mankind has disappeared from this planet, how long will it be before all of our buildings and other traces of our existence disappear from view? Would they still be visible long after all vegetation and water has disappeared from the face of the Earth? Will the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower, for example, stand forever as a testament to our existence? Or will they, too, crumble into the dust of time?
I was thinking about these futuristic issues after I came across an article with the headline Trio of Towers Found on Mars? on the Coast to Coast AM site. Apparently, one Jóse Luis Camacho Espina discovered the towers while studying images of the red planet, and “he proposes that they are massive ancient buildings which somehow managed to withstand the ravages of time on Mars.” There’s even a lengthy video accompanying the article, with all kinds of cool images.
Who knows if there was ever life on Mars, and what form it might have taken. Certainly, there is no evidence of skyscrapers like those on Planet Earth, but perhaps Martian life didn’t evolve as far as life on Earth has, hence the lack of signs of civilization. And even if there were Martian people, perhaps they lived in impermanent structures never designed to stand up for thousands of years, like the teepees, igloos, mud huts and the like here.
While thinking about all of this, I recalled a short article I wrote in my former newspaper blog and then posted here about the discovery by a NASA lander of a ladybug on Mars, and what it meant to the world. It’s a fun read for a Sunday. Tap here to read it.
About Sunday Reads posts: This is a weekly feature started last Sunday giving us all a chance to point to an article or two that we found interesting in the preceding week, or the morning of. They can be offbeat, humorous, weighty commentary, whatever. Personally, I’ll probably go the lite route for this feature, since I post so much serious stuff during the week.
So, if you have any recommendations, please point to them in the readers’ comments section below.
Happy Sunday!
— Jillian
Photo: Mars (NASA)
Jillian Page 
They will be gone after a few centuries. While this planet has a few more billion years of life left in it.
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There was something on the History Channel about this that you can see here:
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/life-after-people/
Scientists expect that 200,000 years after people are gone that an alien archaeologist will still be able to find artifacts of man’s presence. Most steel and concrete structures will be gone but stone, such as Mount Rushmore and the Great Wall of China will still be there. It would take millions of years for us to be completely erased.
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Interesting film!
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Mars is 53% smaller than Earth. If they formed at the same time, 420 Billion years ago, give or take a Billion years, then knowing when the molten core of Mars cooled and solidified would provide scientists for a benchmark of when this could happen to earth. The prevailing theory among astrophysicists is that when the molten core of Mars solidified, it lost its magnetic field. The magnetic field around Mars, like Earth, forms a shield that protects the planet surface from the ravages of the solar wind. Without the magnetic field, the radiation would kill all living things, and indirectly cockroaches because they wouldn’t have a food source. The solar wind would literally blow the atmosphere away.
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And isn’t it also thought that solar winds carried dust from Mars to Earth, seeding our planet with elements of life as we know it?
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I think by the time visitors from other worlds make their way to Earth, the cockroaches should have evolved enough to be able to tell stories about when humans were here. Maybe while sitting around a uranium powered campfire.
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Well, I was listening to Coast to Coast AM on my way home from work last night, and the guest was saying visitors from other planets have been here thousands of times since the days of Sumeria. They might be among us now . . .
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