pidjy, I think most scientists still believe that the planet never formed, but it's one of those things that we won't know for sure until we go there. There is a version of the exploding planet 'hypothesis' that states that the atmosphere of Mars was blasted away due to the exploding planet via meteor collisions. If you want a mercantor map of Mars to play around with and map to a sphere do a google for "the evil dr. ganymede". There is a map of Mars on one of the links from his site. Phobos and Demos too, (but they don't map to a sphere, exactly). - TJ