NASA re

As the space agency prepares to launch a new Martian probe, it shows us a warmer, wetter Red Planet.

(Credit: Video screenshot by Eric Mack/CNET)

Four billion years ago, Mars would have been a pretty nice place for a spring-break trip. At least that's the way it appears in a new animation published to the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's YouTube channel on Wednesday.

The animated artist's rendition of ancient Mars begins with a flyover of a lake that bears a slight resemblance to, say, Utah's Lake Powell. Then we see time progress and a transition from a warm, wetter climate to a dry, colder one (like, say, 10 miles north of Lake Powell in January).

Deliberately missing from the video are any colonists from the finale of ' Battlestar Galactica' or other signs of life -- there's evidence that water was once present on Mars, but so far definitive Martian fossils have not been forthcoming.

Check out the full video below. NASA is also hosting a hangout on Google+ Wednesday afternoon for the pre-launch of its MAVEN spacecraft that will study the atmosphere of Mars.