New Mars Forums

Well done Cassioli....actually i can make out another crater right in front looking towards the hills in this 3d photo,i hadnt seen before when looking at the same pic in 2d!!Hope to see  more of these 3d pics as the rover makes its way toward the hills.

Anyone heard about rumours coming from Mars express team regarding finding traces of mineral salts allover martian surface? ???

According to Nasa,Mazaztal is a basaltic rock like most rocks examined at the gusev site.Prolly the green colour is olivine!Like in the case of Humphrey,there seems to be evidence of alteration of the rock with passage of minute quantities of water.Some kind of mineral salts could be traced in the fracture line inside this rock which is clearly visible in the MI image.The presence of olivine excludes this rock to have been formed in a watery environment as in the case at Meridiani.The water interaction with the rock must have taken place after its formation,otherwise the olivine would have been altered.What i'm really puzzled about is the fact that ,theres this one rock at Meridiani:Bounce..cant explain how it got there and its place inside the story of Meridiani site!Is it possible that the minerals found along the fracture line inside Mazaztal at Gusev be attributed to microbial activity combined with ground water seepage thru the rock or just water  acting alone?!!

So i take it that Mars Express subsurface radar imaging wont be able to differentiate between underground water from hydrocarbon deposits.Is that right?Correct me if i'm wrong,i believe the radar is capable of penetrating 4 km underground..so any oil deposits should also be detected except we wont know for sure its composition.Congratulations to  John ,,interesting work u've done there!

atajurk, Can  you please identify the site from where u're getting these pics coz i havent seen them on any of the Nasa/JPL sites?

SBird,     Episodic geological activity on Mars   has already been  manifested by the fresh looking gullies we see in a few craters in mid southern latitudes  ( that could also explain the distribution of methane along equatorial regions!)Strangely enough,methane has never been discussed in relation to these martian phenomena.Now whether volcanic activity on a larger scale is occurring is still to be seen.I guess this finding opens up a number of tantalizing possibilities,and yes..one of these is whether life has a part in  it. MY opinion,i dare say ,it makes more sense that life which might exist underground or lies dormant on martian surface..subsurface comes to life along with geological activity. Some scientists explain the  ancient huge water channel flows we see today on the surface by such EPISODIC rather than continuos geological activity...some dare even say that this could happen again today if magma hits a huge subsurface water reservoir resulting in chaotic regions and huge water flows...remember that outgassing of volcanic gases raise pressures and temperatures temporarily to allow liquid water to exist on the surface.the question would be for how long  will the water be able to exist in liquid form and hence determine the size of the water channel!The huge sizes of ancient flows of course fits pretty well if we assime that atmospheric pressures and temperatures were higher in earlier martian history compared to the present day on Mars.

I'll have to agree with lunarmark regarding the possibilities existing for the origin of methane.Prior to the finding of methane on Mars,scientists were not excluding that the planet might still be geologically active.Orbital pics of lava flows on Mars seem to corroborate this since some flows are free of craters indicating a young age...i believe the ones indicated to demonstrate this were the elysium flows.The argument for failing to see any present activity on the surface is that the last eruptions may have occurred few millions to thousands of years ago and hence some volcanoes may just be dormant rather then extinct,Its a matter of time until the next volcano comes to life!The finding of methane could push that latest geological activity to more recent history thou..to hundreds of years..still  Mars as agreed is geologically dead when compared to say Earth or Venus.

dont agree with that dickbill.We havent yet discussed who created the chemical reactions for life..the laws of physics and chemistry in the universe that form the basis for reactions which have developed into what we see today..including possible life on Mars.

There is no evidence as yet or i dont recall myself of anything being mentioned of volcanoes being a source for methane on Titan except UV light interacting with Titans upper atmosphere.

Cassioli,are you trying to suggest that some of those round objects or 'pebbles" could be  spherules similar to the ones found at Meridiani?I guess the only way to confirm that is to show that some of these are made up of haematite or not but that would be difficult since individually they wont make up a strong signal as to give themselves up in moss spectra!

Still cant understand why dark areas exemplified by Meridiani are well preserved knowing that global dust storms occur on Mars! ??? would appreciate if someone could give me some feedback regarding this matter. :;):

Just hope the huygens probe  wont be a disaster like Beagle 2 lander.