Starship Asterisk*

There is little doubt in my mind Mars supported a substantial ocean and a substantial biosphere in the past.
Some time ago I was browsing the MOLA (Mars Orbital Laser Altimeter)site and noticed they had published a very nice topographic map of the entire planet.
I dabble in graphical renderings using a 3D modler called Moray. It's a modeling program much like a CAD system that allows one to manufacture photorealistic 3D renders. One of the great features of Moray is that it supports a very nice hight field generator. Using a comparative scale of dark to light it projects a third axis to an otherwise flat picture or render, and makes a 3D image of said same by adding a Z axis and uplifting lighter portions, according to shading, dark being low and light high.
I thought the MOLA topographic would be an ideal candidate for this process and tried it.
As it turns out the color sceme of the MOLA topographic fit perfectly into the parameters for the hight field generator and it rendered a very nice 3D view of the entire surface of the planet.
By skewing the camera angle and observing the results, the "aparent" shoerlines of the former oceans became grossly visable, both by virtue of the above and below water level erosion slope, and the consistancy of that demarcation level planet wide. Having seen this same effect of below and above water erosion in the great basin of the western United States it was easy to spot.
So I decided to take the flat, full planet view, and place a plane in it at the aparent level of the former oceans. I also rendered it as a globe after putting the ocean in.
The results ,for me a rank amature, we astonishingly good.
Here is a link to several of the renders I have made and posted to my yahoo profile photo albums.
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/eyecapita ... /my_photos
In it is a cutaway of the planet with oceans and a simulated "warm" core and one, in true color, as it is today with a cool planet core. Note that I only guestimated the cores and they don't represent anything near science. Call them and all of these "artists conceptions." I use the term "artist" loosely.
Following are several pictures of the Mars globe with it's former ocean, the third directly overhead of Meridiani Planum, with the Opportunity rover's location circled in red, the original MOLA topo, and the same cropped without and with ocean.
The final three are a low camera angle of the Meridiani landing site, looking north, with the ocean full and two with the water receding. The process of the water receding was simply to lower the ocean plane slightly and snap a still, so the progress of the water receding and the slope of meridiani must be fairly close to accurate.
The receding water frames were done such that they should represent a fairly acurate view of the slope at Meridiani and show it was indeed what could be called a "tidal zone" where the level was subject to change with the tides over a broad expanse. This area seems to be to be a perfect candidate for the type of sea life Sir Charles Shults III has outlined in his fossil pages at Xenotechresearch.
The final frame is a cross eyed stereo view of an object imaged by Opportunity's microscopic imager on sol 507. If this is not a fossil sand dollar I'm a blue nosed gopher.http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ ... 6M2M1.HTML That is the link to the artifact itself on nasa's raws page. You can clearly see it at the bottom right tip of the shaddow in the left side of the frame.
For those interested the MOLA site is herehttp://ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/status.html
I would encourage everyone to visit the MOLA site as it is a wealth of great information, data, and images of the planet in 3D. And I might add scientificly accurate detail published by professional scientists.
I also made a short animation of the Mars globe, with ocean, rotating on it's axis and posted at my yahoo group here in the photo albumshttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/MarsReality/
You must join the group to view it but it only takes a few seconds. Coments and questions are welcome but please don't be to hard on this old amature. I don't know if I could handle the presure.
I hope you all enjoy seeing Mars as it once apeared when it was a living biosphere. I certainly had fun rendering it and was amazed at the final results of my efforts. Mars, it seems, had one huge ocean.
Enjoy

Sorry 'bout the late reply and the continued thread-jacking...

I agree that most of the images to which you linked bear signs of flowing liquid, but I wouldn't call those features "geysers". I'll wait for evidence of geyser ejecta (see Triton) or actual imagery of an erupting geyser (again, Triton), neither of which seem to have been collected from Mars...yet.

aichip wrote:NASA tells us constantly that erosion on Mars is at a standstill; that the landscape is as it was for billions of years.

I have never heard this from Nasa or any teacher/professor/expert worth their boiling-point-elevating freezing-point-depressing salt.

aichip wrote:Not exactly, as it happens, but close- and they imaged those tracks with the microscopic imager when they did back out. What did we see?
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ ... 56M2M1.JPG[/url]

This is the microscopic image of the track! It shows a pattern of erosion that is absolutely identical to that created by raindrops on soil with rocks! Here is an image for comparison:
http://xenotechresearch.com/Soilpeds.jpg

Works better flipped upside down...
http://images6.theimagehosting.com/1M17 ... 56M2M1.JPG
...But it's still comparing micro and macro. Are soil pedestals self-similar down to the microscopic scale?

aichip wrote:I have run into "I can't see it" enough to know that in many cases, it is poor monitor adjustment that obscures the images. On a properly gamma-adjusted monitor, the results is nothing short of amazing. But some people simply cannot see them.

Uh...I'm pretty sure this isn't the case for me.

aichip wrote:One very clear indicator- pentagonal forms. Regular pentagons occur all the time in biology and never in geology. That is something to keep in mind.

That's actually correct as far as crystals are concerned - pentagonally symmetric crystals don't exist. Of course, rocks aren't perfect crystals...
One can plainly see pentagons in the images of cracked up Martian surface. Are those biological too? Stones here on Earth can easily look pentagonal from a single point of view, particularly sedimentary rocks, like the ones by the river near where I live. I guess what I'm saying / getting at is the images of alleged fossils don't look convincing to me.

aichip wrote:I found more images and was able to construct a three dimensional image.

I'd like to see those images, since they would confirm that these objects are actually pentagonal instead of probably just looking like that by chance.

aichip wrote:What sort of geology would produce that? And what sort of geology would produce two pentagonal things in that close proximity?

I also wonder what sort of geology could possibly excavate two intact fossils and deposit them onto the Martian dust surface in such close proximity.

By the way, have you contacted Nasa with your findings?

I hate to go here Pete, but, credibillity is an issue with all things Nasa regarding Mars exploration at this point.
Truely the MER teams have done exceptionaly outstanding work in the planning and execution of these missions. I have NO issues with that and thank them heartily for their skill and efforts. They are to be comended beyond words and I hold them all in the highest esteem for their work.
Their boss' seem to have a problem though.Like it or not the beurocrats seem to have an agenda of their own and it's not about science or discovery. Exactly what it is I have no clue.
Why have they dropped the ball so baddly on simple tasks like proper colorisation of the frames released to the public?
The sky on mars presented to us by pathfinder was blue. It was the first thing I noticed when the first shots came out as I watched it unfold live on tv. I too was led to "believe" that Mars would have reddish sky but pathfinder proved that wrong right off. Pathfinder also photographed a nice coral as well.
The sky on mars is clearly blue as viewed from the ground. It's clearly seen in the proper color orientations of Sir Charles frames. His colorising is correct in my estimation and I will elaborate.
In many of the frames he has rendered and posted there are parts of the rover in frame. Those parts are various metals including stainless steel.
As a tool and die maker/machinist/injection mold maker I am utterly familliar with what these metals look like and how they handle reflected light. I also KNOW beyond doubt that the flag of the United States of America is definately red,white and blue. Both the flag in these shots and the metals exibit proper color in all respects! Furthermore the ground in those shots, and those not with exposed rover parts as a standard, is identicle.
Nasa has dropped the ball there so why believe they would be forthright about findings that smear egg all over their faces concerning fossils and active water? Why have they hedged so and balked at anouncing water action on the surface when only hydrolics could have produced the features we see so often at meridiani? Runnoff channels with sorted sands and pebles don't happen from wind here, and I would not expect it to happen in a far less dense atmosphere either. There is water working there and Nasa has continued to persist in the obvious untruth that it is not. Furthermore these features could not persist for long BECAUSE of the wind driven sands and dust. The water must be flowing activly and continualy to refresh these features. And there is also a dandy ice flow from the wall of one of the craters Opportunity explored. No mention was ever given it. I would have slapped that one every network as soon as I saw it if I were calling the shots! It's HUGE news!
And why would any scientist or group of scientists make the monumental blunder of telling us that trillions of nearly identicle sized and marked objects are the result of some sort of geologic action? Especialy when these markings are largely triangular and pentagonals such as the sand dollar star in the frame on sol 507? It simply makes no sense! Biology is the only known source of replication on this scale and the scale there is litteraly trillions. The bloody plains of meridiani are painted blue with these artifacts and that's another thing not seen in the nasa panoramas since their color is OFF. Have a look at the expanse from the first panoramic shot nasa published and Sir Charles applied "proper" color to. The sky and the planes are blue like they should be. Not ruddy red brown as Nasa released photos continue to paint it incorrectly.
Have a look at the HST shots of Mars and you will see the blue of the sky is even reflected nicely in the icecaps. Indeed, APOD itself carried a very nice shot of a crater filled with a lake of ice and frosted rims and the sky blue is reflected in it as well. I'd point out that that original photo was published by the ESA. Heh heh.
Have you even taken the time to view the raws yourself? I have and I am convinced that there is no logical explaination other than biologic replication of several species. In fact many hundreds of shots clearly show these organisms were killed then fossilised in the very act of reproduction by budding! Or is there some mysterious minerology at work that likes to put lobes on concretions that are uniformly identicle to the parent in various stages of progress? Why do these "concretions" NEVER show sharp edges in these examples unless they have been shatered and broken? They are all roughly spherical. Do concretions consistantly form peaked domes with uniform clefts? I think not! Do concretions consistantly form uniformly spaced lobes in size and symetries identical across many examples? Again,I don't buy it! I have viewed many hundreds, perhaps more than a thousand actualy, of the microscopic imager raws from opportunity since the day it landed . I can tell you for certain there are things Sir Charles has not posted that warrent further investigation as well. Many fine examples of small skulls resembling tiny reptiles are all over the place. Or is there some mysterious rock that likes to have eye, ear,nostril and mouth openings bored in it? I don't think so!
Sir Charles has erred on the side of caution in the light of scientific scrutiny so as not to be verbose and labeled a crank, because, he is truely interested in publishing easily verifiable material, and getting this discovery in the public eye. This is finaly proof that LIFE didn't just form here on mother Earth!
Take a week or two and go through those raws and see what a treasure trove we have been given. Mars was a living biosphere once and I for one would have liked to go fishing there.
Also bare in mind that Meridiani Planum was once a "tidal zone" ideal for the types of organisms Sir Charles has presented to the world.
Take the time to go to the MOLA site, download the whole planet topographic, and render a 3D perspective as I did and you also will see the shorelines of the once proud Martian ocean. Take a ride from Reno to Salt Lake city and view the erosion patterns on the mountains at the shore of that once inland sea. You will see the exact same thing on Mars. You will also see that Meridiani is definately a shallow tidal zone and was perfectly suited for the organisms Sir Charles has outlined for us.
Remember this. It's easy to say you "don't see it" when you have never looked.

We need to send men there and bring some stuff back.
Orin

Orin,
I agree, we do need to go there. But it needs to be done with private funding so the government cannot say what information is dissiminated to the public and what information gets locked away.

Way back in the first sols of the Opportunity mission I viewed these organisms. http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ ... 3M2M1.HTML
There are 17 frames on this page Http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ ... _m028.html with this same class of organism clearly defined. They all show the same clefted indents and peaked dome structure. This one http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ ... 3M2M1.HTML was the first of many seen to be in the process of "budding". It is just slightly northwest of the item Sir Charles has found a terestrial cousin to here http://xenotechresearch.com/seagoph1.htm and they can all be seen on the previously noted Nasa raws page.
It's location can be confirmed since the "Murchin" (my whimsical name for Mars Urchins) at the lower right of the frame is also in frame with the other Murchins found on this area. These are perhaps the best preserved of any of the organisms imaged in the Opportunity rover's long trek of discovery.
The same features are seen repeated many hundreds of times across a wide area as opportunity rolled relentlessly on in it's duties.
I'm sure Sir Charles will be back to elaborate on his latest findings and I apollogise for jumping the gun and getting his page linked here befor he had time to address this.
Meanwhile I have posted a crosseyed stereo view of the "Budding" fossil here http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/eyecapita ... pg&.src=ph

Enjoy!

Hello All

With ver high respect, I need more proof to prove life on mars.


I need to know that these things do not grow from inorganic physical properties of the area.

Many images
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ ... _text.html

To prove life we need to know more properties of the so called sea urchin on Mars.

I for one would love to know that life exists elsewhere.

But! there is something fishy here.

Why! after so many millions of years these things look fresh.

I would assume that these objects were formed from inorganic means.

I could be wrong, smile and most probably wrong.

Harry,
Consider that after a hundred million years, even dinosaur fossils seem fresh. Such is the fact of a fossil.

Harry.Good question as to the "pristine" look of these sol 28 fossils.
Knowing what we know about the water activity there at Meridiani I would assume erosion is always a work in progress.
I would suggest that these fossils have only recently eroded out of the sedimentary rock they became a part of when they died and were fossilised. These have been entombed in rock, possibly for millions of years, and have only recently resurfaced.
Water action is quite likely why the sol 28 specimins are so clean while others appear encrusted with dust.
The process has been ongoing for a very long time as well. The plains are littered with loose specimins which also show considerably more wear and tear from being tossed and turned by water and wind.
Many examples of these organisms still partialy embedded in rock can also be found.
One thing, not well publicised, if at all, is the presence of actual ice flows.
This is a very sweet shot of just such an ice flow..http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/eyecapita ... pg&.src=ph
To date I know of nowhere else this pancam photo has been published outside of the raws and Xenotechresearch. It's an astonishingly clear view of a sizable ice flow impregnated with dust. I would have thought Nasa would have made it headline news but aparently they missed it or just didn't care for us to know about it. I would also think that the presence of ice at such a low latitude would also spur interest in a manned mission since getting water once on planet will be a boon to the mission. It means they won't have to haul all their water with them. Certainly a huge plus for the mission planners as well.
So we can make some pretty good gueses as to the forces at work. Wind and sand scour the surface, guysers spew liquid and high velocity vapour mixed with sand and dust, and the sun bakes the surface every day.
When Pathfinder landed and sent back information I was suprised to find the air temperature near the surface was a balmy 66 degrees F. Couple that with the bitter cold of martian nights and we can see the erosion process may actualy be faster than here on Earth with similar materials.

I love this shot so much here's a stereo viewhttp://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/eyecapita ... pg&.src=ph
Colorising credit goes to Sir Charles Shults III (Aichip)
The full size photo is posted somewhere in the mountain of data on http://www.xenotechresearch.com, along with the link to the raws from Nasa.

Hello All

Soon NASA is launching another explorer to go to MARS.

With more evidence we may prove life on MARS.

So far its not enough. Too many lose ends.

I have to put a post up answering all those concerns, but work has taken all of my time of late. I will post a complete reply to everything shortly!

Sorry for the great delay, but projects here occupy a great deal of time, and have kept me from having the needed time to reply. Here is a little bit of information for those with the patience to hang on this long!

Pete wrote:

Sorry 'bout the late reply and the continued thread-jacking...

That is quite all right. My work schedule and responsibilities have kept me from this forum for a few days but I will remedy that now.

On the subject of geysers on Mars

Pete wrote:

I agree that most of the images to which you linked bear signs of flowing liquid, but I wouldn't call those features "geysers". I'll wait for evidence of geyser ejecta (see Triton) or actual imagery of an erupting geyser (again, Triton), neither of which seem to have been collected from Mars...yet.

The first thing here is that we (and many other people) are familiar with the signs of flowing liquid. On this we agree- a liquid flowing over the surface created the features we are looking at.

I think that we also agree that because there is erosion on Mars that is ongoing (and dust devils are just one obvious sign of this) that many of these features would have been eroded away over any significant period of time. So far, so good.

Now, we want to figure out where the liquid came from that produced these features. The slots under the stones are first contenders because they are an unknown. We also have identification from geologists, which is not a guarantee but is a nod in the right direction. Professionals recognize these as places where water might emerge, if these features were seen on Earth. With that as a starting point, let's see if I can build a case.

Also, note that a hole in the ground that, through natural forces ejects a stream or spray of liquid is indeed a geyser by definition. Most definitions state that water is the active material in question, some simply say "liquid". Here is a link for definitions of the term. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=& ... n&ct=title

So the term for a crack or hole in the crust or surface of a planet or moon that ejects a liquid (which might be water and might include steam) is "geyser". I think we can agree on that, but if you object, please tell me so and why. We see a hole or slot and the action of a flowing liquid seems to be working there, so I will use the term geyser until something says otherwise. At least people following the thread can understand what I am implying.

As for evidence, the problem is that varying conditions due to the change of the seasons might mean that some erupt only at night, or late evening, or early morning. We would be unable to get images in those case, and so such evidence would be unobtainable at this time. Too bad they did not include a small strobe or halogen lamp to take night images, and to dispense with the color calibration controversies once and for all.

On the subject of erosion on Mars

I wrote that:

NASA tells us constantly that erosion on Mars is at a standstill; that the landscape is as it was for billions of years.

Pete wrote:

I have never heard this from Nasa or any teacher/professor/expert worth their boiling-point-elevating freezing-point-depressing salt.

Steven Squyres was looking at some tiny "craters" (little more than potholes) on the sides of some of the dunes that Opportunity was studying. On seeing these little potholes, he said basically that these little craters could be anywhere from a few thousand years old to a hundred million years old. In other words, his implication was clear- nothing changes on Mars, and nothing erodes. To say that these potholes might be a hundred million years old was ludicrous.

I will find the link to this- it was published on the NASA/JPL site in a press release and so it should be fairly easy to locate.

So we already know the following about erosion on Mars. First, there are definitely dust devils (and we have the images and the movies, as well as countless images from orbit showing the dust devil trails over the ground.) Second, we know that there are plenty of impact events. Third, we know that there is water present as clouds, frost, ice, fog, etc. and that this water could, in principle, soak into the rocks or the ground. We also know that at night, the ground is likely to freeze. Well, water freezing inside rocks is one of the most powerful forces of erosion known. It splits and chips the rocks constantly, and I have plenty of images of the results of that process on Mars, which I will post if requested. (You know I won't pass up an opportunity like that!)
Then we have the images of the so-called "dust slides". A single question stops the speculation that it is dust in its tracks. How does dust change color by sliding down a hill? How does that change fade in the course of a few hours? It does not, on both counts. It appears that we are seeing eruptions of liquid that then dry out. Look at this page and go to the bottom:
http://xenotechresearch.com/mwater5.htm

What strikes me is how few people have seen the images in stereo. This absolutely answers many questions about the true shapes and the actual associations of features in the images. That is one of the reasons I try to produce plenty of stereo images for people. But another result emerges from those stereo images.

You can see clearly how some force (and I feel that it is from geyser spray) produces the "stems". The spherules are harder than the surrounding gypsum and when the spray from a geyser (which might carry grit and sand) strikes them, the spherules shield the rock behind them from eroding as rapidly. Results? Spherules on stems. Look at the Fram Crater Sol 085 images for a little of the evidence I have put together.

http://xenotechresearch.com/framgey1.htm

I have many more examples that clearly show unidirectional orientation o the stems, showing that a single directed force had to be responsible for their formation. But I also have images that show the actual location of a geyser that formed the stems and eroded the rock in the region. I will put that page on my site very shortly, as I know that everyone will want to see it.

Pete wrote (about the soil pedestals and the microscopic images):

...But it's still comparing micro and macro. Are soil pedestals self-similar down to the microscopic scale?

In truth, these pedestals are only about half the size of the smaller ones in the terrestrial image. The "micro" images are no more magnification than a hand magnifier. The spherules you see on the soil pedestals are between 3 and 5 millimeters across, so they are "macro" enough.

About seeing what is in the images

I wrote:

I have run into "I can't see it" enough to know that in many cases, it is poor monitor adjustment that obscures the images. On a properly gamma-adjusted monitor, the results is nothing short of amazing. But some people simply cannot see them.

Pete wrote:

Uh...I'm pretty sure this isn't the case for me.

And this is an impossible point to argue. If you cannot see it, then you cannot. It does not matter what the picture shows if you cannot see it.

I wrote:

One very clear indicator- pentagonal forms. Regular pentagons occur all the time in biology and never in geology. That is something to keep in mind.

Pete wrote:

That's actually correct as far as crystals are concerned - pentagonally symmetric crystals don't exist. Of course, rocks aren't perfect crystals...
One can plainly see pentagons in the images of cracked up Martian surface. Are those biological too?

Not at all- they are definitely mud polygons, and while some have five sides, they are not symmetrical at all. They are only roughly pentagonal.

Pete wrote:

Stones here on Earth can easily look pentagonal from a single point of view, particularly sedimentary rocks, like the ones by the river near where I live. I guess what I'm saying / getting at is the images of alleged fossils don't look convincing to me.

It is when you have multiple images from varying perspectives, and you can see the results in three dimensions that you can see clearly what is a regular pentagon versus a simple rough form. In some cases you can just rotate the image by 72 degrees and overlay it and if the features match very closely, you know it is the same angular width as a regular pentagon. With repeated features this is a strong indicator of regular pentagonal symmetry.

I wrote:

I found more images and was able to construct a three dimensional image.

Pete wrote:

I'd like to see those images, since they would confirm that these objects are actually pentagonal instead of probably just looking like that by chance.

Here you go: http://xenotechresearch.com/Pentobj2.htm Cross eyed stereo, bottom of the page.

I wrote:

What sort of geology would produce that? And what sort of geology would produce two pentagonal things in that close proximity?

Pete wrote:

I also wonder what sort of geology could possibly excavate two intact fossils and deposit them onto the Martian dust surface in such close proximity.

They might well have been part of a single larger structure and the two pieces fallen apart over time. I sort of suspect this due to them both being pentagonal and roughly of the same scale. That is just a scpeculative thought, but consider that if it had been an animal skeleton, we would likely find many fossils right next to each other, and each would have been a bone from the whole.

Pete wrote:

By the way, have you contacted Nasa with your findings?

Yes indeed, and the results were rather interesting in their own right.

My site keeps track of visitors, and the emails I sent had a series of specific links to my site in order. The email was received and the links visited by the recipient (Matt Golumbeck was one) and then I saw where the same links, in the same order, were being visited by other people at other organizations.

The visitors included people from Arizona State, Stonybrook, National Institute of Health, the CDC, and then went on to include various military agencies. No response was received from any of the recipients, but now they are regular visitors and have been for the last couple of years.

On any given day, my visitors are from 5% to 40% military and government, and they range through agencies I had never heard of before. The fact that they visited the same links as I sent in the email, and in the same order as in the email, is enough to convince me that the email had been forwarded to them from the original recipients. Would you agree?

Futhermore, I was soon contacted by phone and by email from employees of both NASA and JPL who stated that I was correct, but that they were not allowed to speak due to the non-disclosure agreements that they had signed. All declined to be named, but three told me that there was a marine biologist on the MER team early on, and some hav since forwarded various useful links to me that have helped my to substantiate my claims. I do not wish to expose these people or create trouble for them.

For Harry:

I sense that you are very close to believing what I have posted, but I also understand your reluctance. It can be difficult to accept that something we have been told by a reputable organization is actually wrong. Not only that, but it can also be difficult knowing that people see you as "one of those Mars weirdos" who believes in aliens.

The fact is, things we believe are shown to be wrong all the time, and it is then that the "weirdos" who believe those things that turn out to be true are then perceived as "visionary". But that is poor fare when you have no idea when the facts will be known or accepted. There are still people claiming we never went to the Moon. I know better.

Harry wrote:

I for one would love to know that life exists elsewhere.

But! there is something fishy here.

Why! after so many millions of years these things look fresh.

I would assume that these objects were formed from inorganic means.

The rock surrounding the fossils is very soft- little more than gypsum silt that accumulated at the bottom of a sea and slowly compacted and dried. The spherules are worn out by erosion, sometimes by wind or sand, other times by spray from geysers (my theory) from the remaining water table.

Some are newer and less eroded, others are worn greatly. This is also true on Earth in fossil beds that have been found. Some of the fossils look almost new, others are so worn as to be unidentifiable. There are places here where you are crunching fossils under your feet, and some look brand new. A limestone bed is a perfect example. You can extract sea shells from limestone deposits that look almost new in many cases. I have some sand dollar fossils in hand that are over 37 million years old, yet you would not question them if you found them on a beach.

All things are relative, and when such fossils are found, we are fortunate when they make their way to a museum instead of a child's toy chest or rock collection to be stepped on, lost, or destroyed. Mars presents us with a great chance to find out the answers to some of our oldest and deepest questions about the origins of life. I hope that when those answers are made known, we are able to gain some insight into ourselves and our place in the larger scheme of things.

Hello All

Hi! Aichip, sorry that I have not spent enough time on your comments.

Like you I have projects to oversee and time is short at the present time.

But! I'm very interested.

Seeing this image


http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ ... 57M2M1.JPG
from
http://xenotechresearch.com/Marsrind.htm

Idicates to me the same features as before.

Something is producing these things. I cannot put my fingure on it.
ooooops did not see the link.
Your right in the following link.
http://xenotechresearch.com/framgey1.htm


So! does this mean that there is no evidence for life.

No, Harry, the spherules are themselves fossils. The geysers simply erode them out of the sedimentary rocks where they died and were fossilized. Groundwater erupts through the geysers and because of the very thin air, the spray does not billow and dissipate like it would on Earth. Instead, the droplets retain their speed and force and some are sure to carry sand and grit.

Now, these high speed droplets wear away at the soft gypsum rock and the spherules are left standing on the stems as a result. This is like sandblasting. Have you ever seen the wood signs that have been sandblasted to heighten the wood grain? This works because some parts of the wood are softer than others and wear away more easily. That is exactly what is happening with the spherules.

Since the spherules are harder material (and I suspect that they are crystallized calcium sulfate colored by iron oxides), they shield the softer material of the sedimentary rock. This water then soaks into the rock and the surface, or at least whatever does not evaporate does this. Salts in the soil keep the mud from freezing completely, and we end up with brine in the soil.

The results of this can be seen when the rover wheels pass over the muddy material. The brine is squeezed out and evaporates in the hot sun, leaving the salt crystals behind. Since the air is so thin and the sunlight is warming the ground, the outer layer is above the boiling point and it appears dry and dusty. But just below the surface, the soil is muddy and very salty.

This means that the soil is wet and any bacteria that can surface the temperature swings and the brine would be very comfortable there. It also means that any bacteria or other organisms have had a safe place to live all this time, and that a sample return mission would be a dangerous thing.

You saw the Fram Crater rock with the stems and spherules, and you can see three "alleys" where spray can reach the rock, and three distinct directions that the stems point. The direction line up with the alleys, meaning that whatever mde the stems came through those alleys. My findings show geysers, the stems line up with those geysers, and the answer seems pretty obvious then.

So the slots under the stones show features created by moving liquid, and the stems line up with the slots. Clearly, whatever emerges from the slots forms the stems, and water is the most reasonable material. It can be found in the atmosphere and is observed as fog, frost, ice, and clouds.

Did you know that Hubble scanned the Martian clouds in polarized light and found that many are water droplets, and not ice crystals? In other words, those clouds represent liquid water in the Martian atmosphere now. That in itself says a lot.

Hello Aichip

Its good that your around.

Good on you mate

From Sydney the land of ozzzzzzzzz

Here is something interesting from the MGS MOC daily image webpage (see bottom)

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/200 ... 502400.gif

Interesting how all the exposed rocks on the southern slopes of the cracks appear to be blocks.

Or is it just an artifact caused by pixelation?

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2006/

You are correct, they all appear very blocky. The most reasonable explanation is a simple one; that the stone in question is sedimentary like what we see in Gusev and Meridiani. This leads to the rock fracturing in a fairly predictable manner.

This is one more piece of evidence of planet covering oceans on Mars, and this might be a good site to look for fossils, if we get another craft there soon.

Hello Aichip

Smile,,,,,,,,,,,,,my comp has gone slow on me.
I'll be out for the next few days.

On slow mode.


I have to take my hut off for your interest in Mars. It's determination like that, that makes things work.

If man can find life on Mars,,,,,,,,imagine the possibilities.

WoW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Downwind in the gravity well???

If anything that'd work the other way round, the gravity well wanting to pull ejecta in toward itself?
That'd make Mars our progenitor, hence it's cold and dead now... and venus our future offspring? ...temperature resistant (thermal vent type)microbes first, terraforming the lanscape to produce enough radiation-shielding gases for more complex life to take hold...


All that said, ejecta could easily be propelled against the pull of the gravity well toward Mars, just not because of it

We have to remember that everything in the vicinity of our sun is falling toward it or in an orbit around it as a result of Sol's gravity and the object's inertia.
Even the ort cloud is suspended in the influence of Sol's gravity and it's very very far away. Yet, it's is gliding along through the cosmos dragged by gravity from our home star and the tidal influence of the stars neighboring us. Gravity doesn't go away magicly with distance. It seems to never stop entirely but does follow the inverse square law of dissipation in field strength with distance.
So any ejecta from an impact that makes it to space has to track a path influenced by the sun after it escapes the gravity of the body it's ejected from.
Indeed if panspermia was the mechanism that brought life here to earth, and if Mars was the progenator, the seeding of Earth from Mars would be far easier than the inverse. Since ejecta from an Earth impact would have to escape a far deeper gravity well initialy, and also climb out of the sun's gravity well.
There is another consideration as well. Mars, being just a bit over half Earth's mass, Cooled and condensed a crust and atmosphere and oceans far faster than did the Earth.
It's not a stretch for me to believe Mars could have developed life befor Earth and subsequent impacts seeded the heavens and Earth recieved some that sprouted.
Take a look at the MOLA site and get an eyfull of the Hellese impact basin on mars southern hemisphere. The event most certainly showered the entire inner solar sytem with debris and it did take place well after Mars crust cooled. Possibly after life had sprung forth.

Spirit has some interesting features too.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ ... A893R1.jpg

View this image in the largest format you can. Look at the right side of the large flat rock just above the rover. It resembles "Tuber worms" that you might see in the ocean today. You get a better feel for the shape if you look at the shadow it casts on The ground. It looks very delicate though.

http://www.imagehosting.us/index.php?ac ... nt=1439318

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ ... A893R1.jpg

More Mars moss?
Orin

It resembles the "Dust Bunny" in the eagle crater images from the Opportunity rover landing site. Of course this was 2 1/2 years ago and half a planet away. (Maybe that "Dust Bunny" blew over here???)

http://www.imagehosting.us/index.php?ac ... nt=1439453

Dust Bunny

http://www.imagehosting.us/index.php?ac ... nt=1439318

Tuber Worms

Hello All

Re: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ ... A893R1.jpg

This is a fantastic image.

Where these features caused by

1) Water erosion
2) Volcanic activity
3) Ice
4) Living organisms.