Starship Asterisk*

Currently, the origin of unusual plumes on Mars is unknown. Please vote for your favorite explanation. This informal poll is connected to the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) of 2015 February 24, found here: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150224.html . If you have other thoughts, comments, or guesses as to the origin of these unusual plumes, please either post them below.

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=34463
http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=34484

Meteorite impacts.

Mike Herman wrote:Meteorite impacts.

in the same spot over 7 days?

Simply being hit by a meteor. I am sure it happens all the time.

If there was enough evidence of water on Mars, I would opt for something akin to a geyser.

My first thought was prolonged thermal venting, not unlike a volcanoe and it's associated network of magma and channels, but likely because mars is nothing like earth green and vibrant state of regeneration and life cycle, it is likely thermal/gas in nature and part of its atmospheric/environmental reconstitution. Stirring up dust and surface matter and/or some kind of charged or combusting particles occurring during periodic continuous "burst" and "currents" of the gases and contents being released from pressured chambers

It's water vapour being ejected from deep in Mars . .hence the foggy Venus like cloud surrounding the planet

manonmars wrote:It's water vapour being ejected from deep in Mars . .hence the foggy Venus like cloud surrounding the planet

That was my first thought....

medium sized meteor impact

My first thought was volcanism, but I think an meteorite - impact is more likely. Because this plume is seen in the pole region, I imagine that the impact causes frozen gas and water to melt and cristallize again in the atmosphere reflecting sunlight, making the plume look denser than it actually is.

Meteor impact would be my guess.

There may be more than one type of cause and plume, all of which would look about the same from this distance.

Could the plume be related to seasonal changes--spring in the northern hemisphere of Mars would sublimate the frozen gases at the pole and create an expanding cloud of ice crystals .

Ummm, some pretty imaginative answers, yet the obvious one was not listed. I wonder why?

I seem to recall an Isaac Asimov (writing as Paul French) story that described dust storms on Mars that were extremely bad because static electricity would suspend the dust particles. maybe that is it...

Luck Starr and the Sands of Mars?

The Mysterons,

Maybe it is a dust based version of a geyser?

Calm down. Its just a new Walmart being built. sheesh.

Obviously: Thermal plume above an alien tailgate party around a cluster of old surface-rovers thought to be long dead.
Second guess: Look to interacting near-polar water and or CO2 surface-atmosphere processes.

Wait a couple weeks until the first cylinder lands and you'll know what this means!

Stephan. I agree with you cylinders from Mars was my first thought!

Burning Man, Martian version.

Perhaps is is some kind of Martian "Aurora" which according to wikipedia can go as high as 1,000 km in Earth's atmosphere.