Forest on Mars !?!?

Matyas
I am thinking the water cycle is stable under the surface. On Earth it is above surface and primarly solar driven. On Mars it is under the surface and more atmosphere driven, boiling off at the surface and refreezing as ice clouds. So the surface is crusty and muddy underneath, depending on the weather...

It sublimes on the surface - under 6.1 mill -and 6 is AVERAGE Martian ( so they say to us) pressure - but it is different on different highest.

It is enough to look at south polar region - and to see all this melting....gullies. Scientist today are taking approach that standing water exist in form of brine - meaning, that water dissolves surrounding minerals and form a super-saline brine - which can ( coz of salts) stay liquid at a lower pressure and temperature.










[edit on 12-6-2007 by blue bird]

Life in the briny habitat //Arctic //:




more

Further searching for analogs between Earth//Mars:

* gullies on Devon Island // gullies on Mars

Gully system on Devon Island [ltop] similar in morphology, scale, and context (they form preferentially along the cold, north-facing walls of valleys) to some of the recent gully systems reported on Mars [bottom].

source

* gullies in Island // gullies on Mars









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* some more....
gullies // Austraila



gullies // Utah



original image

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mars


larger image



[edit on 12-6-2007 by blue bird]

Liquid Was Here?
A gully is seen on the Martian surface in this image taken by the Mars Global Surveyor. Researchers have documented the formation of new craters and found possible evidence for liquid water trickling down crater walls. Scientists found bright, light-colored deposits in the gullies that weren't present in the original photos. They concluded the deposits, possibly mud, salt or frost, were left there when water recently cascaded through the channels.

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*** what I see on these image: water is starting from up - than is moving downhill - little finger like branches that are obviously diverting obstacles.....we can see that braided structure of gullies ( like sediments built on Earth) because some sediments builds in the slower moving area - than stream flow wave around these present obstacles...

Originally posted by blue bird- and a little salt for further lowing the freezing point

So what is the white stuff we are seing left behind by recent gully flows? Sodium chloride or calcium chloride?

That almost settles it. Mars can have a biosphere that ends abruptly at the surface because of:

1. Critical condition of the triple point

2. Hydrogen peroxide percipitation

3. High salinity

4. Radiation exposure

Scooping the surface for signs of life is tantamount to looking in the desert for trees. We need core samples! NASA, you got your ears on? Be sure to name the next probe Blue Bird!

Lake on Tithonium Chasma floor!?

* BW

original MSSS strip


* tanks Matyas

Originally posted by Matyas

2. Hydrogen peroxide percipitation

Yes photochemistry + water +carbon dioxide........ you are right about hydrogen peroxide-talking of all these red oxy- iron! Clear chemical cataylist found!



You know what - it is a great stuff for future terraforming Mars: it means that we cut HP to build oxygen!

On a low-oxygen planet, the H2O2 could have provided an important source of oxidants for driving the evolution of oxygen-mediating and -using enzymes.

This team, using again the same instrument in June 2003, has been able this time to detect the H2O2 molecule and to map it over the Martian disk.

Remarkably, the measured abundance is significantly larger than the upper limit inferred in 2002 , which shows evidence for strong seasonal variations.

The H2O2 abundance and its spatial distribution, which exhibits a maximum in the morning side, around the sub-solar latitude, are this time in satisfactory agreement with the theoretical predictions, and, in particular, with the 3D simulations performed at the Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique.

The amount of H2O2 inferred from the observations is also in good agreement with the global measurement, integrated over the Martian disk, achieved in the submillimeter range, in September 2003, by a team from the Space Science Institute in Boulder .

The nature of the seasonal cycle of H2O2 and its relation with the water cycle remain to be understood.

source

Presence of HP is in the relation with water cycle - yes.... HP is detected and water

Originally posted by Matyas
Be sure to name the next probe Blue Bird!

Almost!

It's the Phoenix

Edit:

Scheduled for launch in August 2007, the Phoenix Mars Mission is the first in NASA's Scout Program. Phoenix is designed to study the history of water and habitability potential in the Martian arctic's ice-rich soil.

Originally posted by blue bird
Lake on Tithonium Chasma floor!?
* BW

original MSSS strip

I am usually wrong when viewing things that could be in or out of the ground depending of the light direction, but in this case I think you are the one who is wrong, the light on the original strip comes from the left and a bit from the top, in an angle of 72º from the top of the image to the left, so that is not a lake, its a mesa (I suppose its the correct name of such structures).

[edit on 12/6/2007 by ArMaP]

Originally posted by ArMaP
I am usually wrong when viewing things that could be in or out of the ground depending of the light direction, but in this case I think you are the one who is wrong, the light on the original strip comes from the left and a bit from the top, in an angle of 72º from the top of the image to the left, so that is not a lake, its a mesa (I suppose its the correct name of such structures).

[edit on 12/6/2007 by ArMaP]

It looks like mesa (btw. to many staff on Mars is attributed, should one say tempered,mesa )- but the summit plateau seems depression like( to me) filled with something fluid like !?

Originally posted by blue bird
It looks like mesa (btw. to many staff on Mars is attributed, should one say tempered,mesa )- but the summit plateau seems depression like( to me) filled with something fluid like !?

I am sorry, but I don't understand what you mean, could you rephrase it?

Thanks.

The Planetary Society strongly attacks the New Scientist Article:

planetary.org...

I am saying, that the top look like depression filled with fluid ( water). I am saying, in other words - that this plateau don't look to me like a flat rock. i can see rims of this object , and inside a smooth surface ,that does not look like solids.And it appears reflective. Like a bowl filled up.

I don´t get it.

The Planetary Society Weblog says that [I]"The white square shows you where the image comes from. It's in the middle of Opportunity's Burns Cliff panorama, on some of the steepest slopes that Opportunity saw before arriving at Victoria crater! Those can't be puddles -- unless the amazing "liquid" that puddles here on Mars in a freezing near-vacuum also has antigravity properties."[/I]

Steep slope? Antigravity ? I can clearly see an inmense ammount of rocks, even small ones, in the image. That can not be a slope.

Correct me if i´m wrong or if just made a bad interpretation of the text.

[edit on 12-6-2007 by Orion437]

If it is on Burn Cliff - it is slope ,unfortunately. coz it was said: Endurance floor

Originally posted by blue bird
I am saying, that the top look like depression filled with fluid ( water). I am saying, in other words - that this plateau don't look to me like a flat rock. i can see rims of this object , and inside a smooth surface ,that does not look like solids.And it appears reflective. Like a bowl filled up.

It looks like a huge boulder fell in and the picture caught the resulting "drop" (read "splash") on the way back down, when it is beginning to collapse on itself.

Now, this is not what i believe it to be, but merely what it looks like.

The interior is very polished. Like, perhaps, a swimming pool?

Matyas, your position is very intriguing. As you are aware, you and I both believe live to exist deep within the crust of Mars. I have no real theory beyond that, honestly. You do, and it is as plausible as anything else I have heard, honestly. Good post. You pretty much summed it all up right there. The chemical catalyst for fe oxidation process.

I would be interested to hear further contemplations regarding this. The atmosphere would like show the tell tale signs of what we would expect as an end result. How do we end up predicting that end result with the model?

95.32% Carbon Dioxide - CO2
2.7% Nitrogen - N2
1.6% Argon - Ar
0.13% Oxygen - O2
0.07% Carbon Monoxide - CO
0.03% Water - H2O
0.00025% Neon - Ne
0.00003% Krypton - Kr
0.000008% Xenon - Xe
0.000003% Ozone - O3

How does the process produce so much carbon dioxide? Did the "normal" (in Earth terms) process run its course until H20 rain stopped and people asphyxiated from the lack of plant life? It would seem that in the polar regions there is a chance for life to exist easily in at least a rudimentary form. The trees are a sign of this. the polar regions have occasional cyclones and some form of precipitation.

To say it is impossible to have actual water rain on one portion, and hydrogen peroxide on another is to be naive and assumptive, that is for sure. Who knows. Somehow those trees seem to be able to tolerate the rains and winds/dust storms.

Somehow the model has to predict the outcome of a majority of CO2 as the end result. That is where I am struggling. I am not much of a chemist, that is for sure. I can cook really well, especially on the grill. That is where my chemistry stops.

Originally posted by blue bird
If it is on Burn Cliff - it is slope ,unfortunately.

coz it was said: Endurance floor

So Blue Bird, does this demostrate that the New Scientist article was wrong?

I think the problem for Levin would be - the fact that he didn't know the exact position.

But - the whole image looked to me as a FLOW -ripples overcoming obstacles beneath during flow....that slope is full of little erosions - small depressions in the soil, between the rocks? Why would not underground water run downhill?

//rotated image



[edit on 12-6-2007 by blue bird]

Originally posted by blue bird
I think the problem for Levin would be - the fact that he didn't know the exact position.

But - the whole image looked to me as a FLOW....that slope is full of little erosions - small depressions in the soil, between the rocks? Why would not underground water run downhill?

[edit on 12-6-2007 by blue bird]

It would run against the path of least resistance as well as downhill. If there are underground tubes, be they from lava or any other source, it is entirely likely that the water could exist also in aquifers running in these tubes. If they are extensive enough, they could represent the largest portion of the water, with the saturated soil only being ancillary to the primary phenomenon.

......just found out:

Editor's Update: No puddles on Mars, New Scientist

"I want to retract the claim in the paper that the smooth area we discussed was 'standing liquid water'," Levin acknowledged on Tuesday. "I am sorry that we made such a large mistake."

from nasa watch