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As someone who has been following the rover mission on a daily basis since their landings, I am dismayed by the avidity with which NASA describes evidence of water--as if large bodies of water probably existed--and their unwillingness to ever bring up the possibility that no large waters of liquid water ever existed.
This weeks "Economist" gives an unvarnished account of what NASA has found that does not jibe at all with their heroically optimistic web articles.
The Economist says that so far NASA has found no signs of life (while admitting the rovers were not set up for that) and that at most, a thin film of very salty brine may have covered some large areas. The so-called sedimentation layers are more likely to have been produced by successive wind-born deposits of dust.
For more on this NASA salesmanship (for a maned mission), see: http://www.velocitypress.com/pages/water_on_mars.php]http://www.velocitypress.com/pages/water_on_mars.php
Who can fail to have noticed in their glowing accounts of the search for signs of past water on Mars, that NASA never mentions the other side of the story? Every press release begins or ends with the hope that the Rovers will find signs of abundant liquid water in Mar's dusty past. In many cases it's not even a hope, it's just a question of when they will find this evidence. And who can blame them? Look at the Martian satellite photos of arroyos, river delta flows etched in the sand, and all the analogues to heavy--even torrential--water flow in the past.
Then you learn that if caused by liquid water, these flows must have occurred millions of years ago, and it hits you: How can these ancient flows look so recent and unweathered, and why aren't more of them pocked with millions of years' worth of meteorites?
My suspicion is that they ARE recent; that there may never have been any significant liquid water on Mars and that the arroyos, and river deltas are nothing more than the flow of a slurry of very fine, crystalline Martian sand and liquid CO2.
If dry ice (frozen CO2) is held undeground by the pressure of dirt above it, and the temperature rises in the summer enough to melt it, the result will be an explosive release of the gas/liquid that will flow downhill like a raging torrent of water, carrying huge blocks of rock and debris with it, and carving out flow channels exactly like a water flood. Once released and flowed-out, the CO2 will evaporate. There are suspicious outflows (deltas) where one would expect signs of pooling of the great flow, but there is no evidence of standing water at all. The sedimentation being used as an excuse for water-layering can as well have been caused by airborn layering due to the annual planet-wide dust storms.
For a continuation of this line of thought, see: http://www.velocitypress.com/pages/wate … n_mars.php
I have not seen much talk of the "White Mars" theory, which posits that all the so-called water flow sighted on Mars is nothing else than liquid and gaseous CO2 that has suddenly erupted (explosively) when underlying beds of frozen CO2 suddenly reach a critical warm temperature and explode.
The result is a massive outflowing of liquid CO2, as well as gaseous, which carries along with it huge boulders, clunkers of rock, dirt and ice, all of which make the familiar rivulets NASA scientitst are claiming to be evidence of water flow.
You can get a tast of this theory (and some references) at: http://www.velocitypress.com/pages/wate … n_mars.php
(Sorry to be the skunk at the dinner party...)
<<I had to stare at it and the accompanying picture of a real face for a few seconds before I figured out what it was talking about. Without the coloring I couldn't really see the "face" at all.>>
I am beginning to discover that there is a very large range over which people are, and are not, able to "see" recognizable images in random configurations. I did a stylized logo which was a wolf's head. To me and a few others , it was as plain as day. but my wife and daughter couldn't see it at all. Nor could some good male friends. Even when I greatly simplified it, and made it plainer and plainer, it almost had to be semi-photographic before they "saw" it.
Perhaps the same is true of this "face," which to me is as plain as day.
Here is a highly detailed face on Mars, taken from today's NASA Rover website. The detail has been overlaid with a light color wash to point out the profile; the bigger picture is the unretouched NASA image.
QUESTION: Do folks on this site know where the “general public” can locate more substantive scientific & mineralogical "press releases" that provide scientific data beyond what is released by NASA to the popular press and to high school students? I am interested in more specific mineralogical data that have been uncovered by Spirit & Opportunity. The Rovers have been on Mars for weeks now, grinding and analysing, so where are the details available?
This doesn't exactly answer your question, but two essays on exactly your complaint that nothing NASA has shown supports any evidence of abundant ancient liquid water on Mars.
[http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-wat … -00k1.html]http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-wat … -00k1.html
[http://users.bigpond.net.au/Nick/Mars/NH0.htm]http://users.bigpond.net.au/Nick/Mars/NH0.htm
[http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-wat … -00i1.html]http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-wat … -00i1.html