APOD: Seasonal Dark Streaks on Mars (2011 Aug 08)

[neufer]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeQL-dUj ... r_embedded[/youtube]

Well, I guess it's pretty darned clear why we have no flying cars now.

You don't have a flying car?

[Boomer12k]

Well, if it is water, we should get up there before it all evaporates!

[alter-ego]

Here is another interesting article (and here).

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=24723

There are a lot articles posted in the mentioned topic, including the two you mentioned, as well as articles from Nature News, Science NOW, University of Arizona (principle investigator of HiRISE on the MRO), and a plethora of others. There is also a link from HiRISE to several gif animations and a paper describing them.

Thanks, bystander. The topic is resource rich indeed.
Your post was 4 minutes before mine, and I did not see it until I submitted. I must fess up just I chose not to go through your post to check for redundancy. I normally try to review sources first.

[DavidLeodis]

Wow, that is one scary creature in the image brought up through the "water-dependent life" link.

[TimW]

What are the green patches underneath the dark brown streaks of water? Do they vary at all over the seasons?

I think they look strikingly like patches of algae or something. But I'm sure the experts wouldn't have missed that!!!

[TimW]

Underneath the brown streaks left by water, I mean, of course...

[waynet_nz]

The streaks in this image look very similar to some natural deposits found in caves in central Australia. It is called "Coffee and Cream" and it is formed by different colored fine gypsum crystals in the complete absence of water.

[Beyond]

The streaks in this image look very similar to some natural deposits found in caves in central Australia. It is called "Coffee and Cream" and it is formed by different colored fine gypsum crystals in the complete absence of water.

Do they come and go seasonally, as they do on mars?

[neufer]

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_Mars_ (Conclusion)
by Percival Lowell

Now, in the special case of Mars, we have before us the spectacle of a world relatively well on in years, a world much older than the Earth. To so much about his age Mars bears evidence on his face. He shows unmistakable signs of being old. Advancing planetary years have left their mark legible there. His continents are all smoothed down; his oceans have all dried up. Teres atque rotundus, he is a steady-going body now. If once he had a chaotic youth, it has long since passed away. Although called after the most turbulent of the gods, he is at the present time, whatever he may have been once, one of the most peaceable of the heavenly host. His name is a sad misnomer; indeed, the ancients seem to have been singularly unfortunate in their choice of planetary cognomens. With Mars so peaceful, Jupiter so young, and Venus bashfully draped in cloud, the planet's names accord but ill with their temperaments.

Mars being thus old himself, we know that evolution on his surface must be similarly advanced. This only informs us of its condition relative to the planet's capabilities. Of its actual state our data are not definite enough to furnish much deduction. But from the fact that our own development has been comparatively a recent thing, and that a long time would be needed to bring even Mars to his present geological condition, we may judge any life he may support to be not only relatively, but really older than our own. From the little we can see, such appears to be the case. The evidence of handicraft, if such it be, points to a highly intelligent mind behind it. Irrigation, unscientifically conducted would not give us such truly wonderful mathematical fitness in the several parts to the whole as we there behold. A mind of no mean order would seem to have presided over the system we see,--a mind certainly of considerably more comprehensiveness than that which presides over the various departments of our own public works. Party politics, at all events, have had no part in them; for the system is planet wide. Quite possibly, such Martian folk are possessed of inventions of which we have not dreamed, and with them electrophones and kinetoscopes are things of a bygone past, preserved with veneration in museums as relics of the clumsy contrivances of the simple childhood of the race. Certainly what we see hints at the existence of beings who are in advance of, not behind us, in the journey of life.