Tectonics of Mars southern highlands, and the Tharsis plateau. Much tectonic study of Mars seeks to explain the processes that led to the planet's division into these three provinces, and how their differing characteristics arose. Hypotheses proposed to explain how the two primary tectonic events may have occurred are usually divided into endogenic (arising from the planet itself) and exogenic (foreign to the planet, e.g., meteorite impact) processes. This distinction occurs throughout the study of tectonics on Mars. In general, Mars lacks unambiguous evidence that terrestrial-style plate tectonics has shaped its surface. However, in some places magnetic anomalies in the Martian crust that
A Beautiful Planet does not have a planetary magnetic field. Consequently, "its atmosphere was ripped away from the planet by the solar wind. If you could stand on Mars today, you would find a landscape of lifeless desolation; very cold, and very dry." One of the current challenges in maintaining Earth's planetary "life support system" is global warming. The film shows how Earth's warming climate is causing the Greenland ice sheet to melt, and drives the point home by showing the Jakobshavn Glacier calving an incredibly large number of icebergs in relatively rapid succession as the end of this flowing river of ice