Mars Express: First a Lake... Now Vegetation?

and we wonder why most mars missions 'failed'..........they found 'something' up there and are trying to by time before 'it' is leaked......but why would they hide 'it' to begin with??????????????

Originally posted by clearmind
and we wonder why most mars missions 'failed'..........they found 'something' up there and are trying to by time before 'it' is leaked......but why would they hide 'it' to begin with??????????????

Good question.

Why haven't they said anything about this "green mineral" before? They must of had pictures of the these green patches before they landed directly on top of them. I bet we'll be seeing some even more controversial pictures from the Mars Express just because NASA gave that explanation.

Actually they have as early as Oct 2000...

The mineral olivine, an iron-magnesium silicate that weathers easily by water, has been found in abundance on Mars. The presence of olivine implies that chemical erosion by water is low on the planet and that Mars has been cold and dry throughout most of its geologic history.

speclab.cr.usgs.gov...

Originally posted by clearmind
and we wonder why most mars missions 'failed'..........they found 'something' up there and are trying to by time before 'it' is leaked......but why would they hide 'it' to begin with??????????????

Well, maybe it looks like NASA wants to hide some information, but the ESA isn't. We've got some competition here. That explains the b#llsh$t explanation NASA gives about ESA's pictures...

The green color in plants is caused by chlorophyl the main stuff in plants but thats just on earth. Vegatation also needs gases to survive like co2 nitrogen. and a mineral based soil. If there was vegatation on mars it would be adapted to the mars climate also it probably micro sized and probably not really green.

This sort of thing is certainly not my area of expertise, and i don't know what filters or light bandwidth is being used for these images - however, it occurs to me that water is not a naturally occuring "blue" even here on earth, but rather a reflection of the color of the sky.

Therefore it would stand to reason that if the sky is not blue on mars, then the water would not appear that way either.
The counterpoint of this would be that this blue substance is gradient in appearance as if it shows varying depths as water would, and there is apparent erosion of the land surounding the blue substance - as if it were a martian "grand canyon"..

Regarding the green, it is certainly diiferent in appearance from the blue, does not show gradience, therefore no variety of depth. To me it could be vegetation or perhaps some kind of mineral spewed from fisures. if you look closely the green seems to start in "northwest" and spread from several small locations to a much larger area...

Very interesting images - i look forward to hearing how the space agnecies explain this...

Originally posted by Kriskaos
The green color in plants is caused by chlorophyl the main stuff in plants but thats just on earth. Vegatation also needs gases to survive like co2 nitrogen. and a mineral based soil. If there was vegatation on mars it would be adapted to the mars climate also it probably micro sized and probably not really green.

I'm not sure about this either, but isn't martian atmosphere supposed to be high in carbon dioxide? perfect for plants, although the temperature extremes may be prohibitive for anything beyond algae to develop...


[Edited on 29-1-2004 by intelgurl]

algae needs water to form but ok some mosses like in the tundra survive but still in that perafrost land the roots of the mosses can scoop up the minerals need for the plants survival. What we need to know first is what is the martian soil made up of. From what Ive seen is that in different locations there are diff soil samples.

The data from NASA is almost two or three years old. The spectrum analysis is from the MGS (Mars Global Surveyor). The Mars Express data just confirms NASA's analysis of the surface anomaly. And is totaly in line with the other compostion data that they are currently getting back from the rovers. High concentration of Hematite and Iron oxidates.

There is no big story about the "green" stuff on mars