News Story Confirms Exploded Planet Hypothesis?

I also read that article and thought exactly the same thing. It was funny since once of my colleagues ran into my classroom and showed me it saying, "hey this is what that guy you told me about predicted." He is reading my first edition of Dark Matter this weekend

Mark Vitrone

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From the yahoo story:

Using Mars photos and computer simulations, researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder concluded that immense asteroids pounded Mars some 3.6 billion years ago, bringing vast quantities of water to the young planet and releasing powerful shock waves of heat that melted existing underground deposits of ice.

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This is really video game generation scientists trying to simulate what happened 3.6 B yars ago. To me that's amazing; not only in how these stories get in the news but how these people are considered doing science.

I would like to get a hold of the arcade game to play with...

I also read this article but I have an issue with the 3.6 billion years.
Perhaps it is not relevant or correct but if this "event" took place 3 (or even just 1) billion years ago the Marsian atmosphere could have filled/coverred in these flood created valleys. The atmosphere of Mars is thin alright and its effects on surface features weak but over a "long" time of 3 billion years allot of valleys might have been covered.
I favour a more "recent" such an event. Less than 1 billion years ago or so. Perhaps as recent as only a few million years.
I might be wrong though.