Curiosity Just Went Through Mud?

reply to post by Larry L

Mars does have an atmosphere, in fact a fairly substatial one. It's just not as heavy/dense as Earth's.

Roughly equivalent at the surface to Earth's atmosphere at something over 100,000 feet. Not exactly substantial. That's why liquid water would not last long.

I'm no garbage man, but I have to ask. Why, if it is moisture, does it have to be water?
According to the data, the surface of Mars is a bit chilly. Aren't there other gases that could condense to liquid form, that may be more prevalent than H2O?

Phage, or anyone else, what do you think about the selection I have highlighted? Does that soil color not seem like damp, nutrient-rich soil where a water channel could have once been? I'm just wondering what exactly could cause the dark coloration of that specific line of soil. I understand it could be from an aerial debris collision but it seems to be isolated specifically in a line-formation.

WOW, it went through something that looks like mud? That's incredible. I'm speechless......thanks for advancing our knowledge.......this is huge!

thanx to the op for the post, it all honesty its pictures like these that drive human imagination and seed the drive to explore and go where no one has gone before ( sorry picard )

in response to the many, and wild musings of the posters on this thread, i would suggest reading up on mars, which many people think of as a failed earth type planet, once having the building blocks of life, but having died out over the many eons of existance.

considering its only been a few decades where mankind is able to make even rudimentary explorations and measurements of the red planet, i would caution everyone to take the blue pill and relax a bit, things are only going to get more exciting over time as nasa finally starts to give up the secrets in its vaults on this planet

as far as the pictures, indeed it could be moisture, but again, there are many ways to create moisture in an environment rich in carbon dioxide and hydrogen. dry ice frost comes to mind, and yes it does have the ability to clump dust into something of a wet sand apperance.

a few points though:

mars indeed has had some sort of liquid environment in its past history

mars enviornment has changed from a warmer environment to a colder one

prettymuch a fact that there is evidence of dry ice snowfalls at the poles

also a fact, a fair amount of hydrogen locked up in mars thin atmosphere

temperatures on mars can be anywhere from -153 to 20 degrees celius, depending on where and when.

orbit around the Sun is elliptical, as much as 20 degrees off plane, some theorists have postulated this wasnt always so. in referance to the main asteroid field between mars and jupiter, the massive craters on the dark side of the moon, as well as mars ( interesting theories, but thats basically it for now on that)

again, great post, in fact this topic is what made me finally bite the bullet and register, so hi world

This is what i see:

Originally posted by Tardacus
This is what i see:

edit on 11-9-2012 by Tardacus because: (no reason given)

edit on 11-9-2012 by Tardacus because: (no reason given)

edit on 11-9-2012 by Tardacus because: (no reason given)

Dirt gets caught in treads. Maybe that's what you're seeing.

Regardless, the Phoenix Lander already observed droplets of liquid water on Mars.

Originally posted by ErroneousDylan
Phage, or anyone else, what do you think about the selection I have highlighted? Does that soil color not seem like damp, nutrient-rich soil where a water channel could have once been? I'm just wondering what exactly could cause the dark coloration of that specific line of soil. I understand it could be from an aerial debris collision but it seems to be isolated specifically in a line-formation.

Dang that sure looks like an area i would not want to drive into and get stuck.
That is quite a build up on those tires.
For the sake of a multi billion dollar project let's not get this puppy stuck in the mud. Again

dbl tbl

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by Larry L

 

Here's the link explaining to you how the Earth's magnetic field protects us from deadly solar radiation and chaged particles.

Yes. The magnetosphere deflects charged particles but it has no effect on other types of radiation (like gamma). Even if we had no magnetosphere, our atmosphere would protect us from solar particles. Where are those experts saying that the surface would be roasted?

If carbon dating isn't reliable beyond a mere 50,000 years, how can you expect me to take seriously your, or any scientists theory that Mars has be dry for A BILLION YEARS. I'm not even saying that's impossible.

Carbon dating wasn't used, obviously. Why even bring it up? There is other evidence which, if you had bothered to look, you would have known. By the way, I didn't say Mars has been "dry" for a billion years. I said that Gale crater has been. There is evidence for transient liquid water on the surface in other areas more recently.

edit on 9/11/2012 by Phage because: (no reason given)

C'mon man! It says "deadly" right there. Besides, those charged particles it's deflecting, it says right there, is the radiation making up the Van Alen belts, which we know is deadly without shielding. Is that link explaing that this stuff is deadly and makes up the Van Allen belts not enough to make my point for the sake of this debate?

I mean you're arguing with me about 6th grade science here. I mean it's common knowledge.....or so I thought.......it was no later than 6th grade my teachers told us about the Earth's magnetic field holding back cosmic "stuff" that would kill everything on the planet. In fact that was probably the same lesson when I first heard the theory about this may be what happened to Mars eons ago (the magnetic field went away from the core solidifying, and life followed). LITERALLY 6th grade stuff, that's not exaggeration.

ANd YOU are the one who asked for a link proving that carbon dating was useless. I know full well your 1 billion year number wasn't made up using carbon dating. If it was, at least that would be SOME kind of data to base it on. That would be giving it too much credit though, because your ONE BILLION YEAR guess is not even based on UNreliable data. It's just a number pulled out of a hat.

The only reason I brought up carbon dating in the first place was just to make the point that if a science we use for dating things here on Earth (carbon dating), is basically useless beyond 50,000 years because you can't tell the age of carbon beyond that, how reliable is the dating of anything from Mars? Especially when that random number dates back to the 70's. ANd is based on no mare than how stuff looks.

You can't judge environments histories by how they look on the surface. If someone who didn't know the history of the Giza Plateau, they'd be hard pressed to believe that but 15 generations ago this was lush, fertile lands. Or that Antarctica was Jungle.......who would believe that based on a picture of how these places look on the surface? Well your 1 billion years without water number is based on naught but how it looks on the surface in pictures. I don't consider that scientific data, I'm sorry. And I'm surprised you do.

I really don't mind debating stuff, but I'm not interested in arguing in circles about Earthly facts like how our scientist are clueless about FAR more than they'd like to admit, or how our magnetic field is what allows us to exist.

reply to post by ErroneousDylan


There's been a lot of speculation as to what the materials in those areas might consist of. One theory are they are clays.

Mars cannot have any "clay" soil. All clay on earth consists of organic particles, meaning at some time or another these particles come from living matter. Having any clay on Mars should be impossible without the organic matter component. There should only be sand and dust.

THe real question should be what was the weather in AZ or NM this past week.

Originally posted by Larry L
Well.......a wet patch of sand anyway. I don't know if I'd call it "mud" or not, but for the purposes of the thread title, it works well enough.

I was just looking at today's (well, the latest) images from Curiosity, and just from the thumbs, I knew I'd like the pictures. Great angle. From a camera under the chassis, down by the wheels. I thought "oh! great angle for looking for little bugs" or something like this......a nice close view of whatever's there anyway. So I start browsing through them..........no bugs, no fossils, no more fingers blown off ancient statues......awwww......lol.

After disappointment lets loose it's grip I just start skimming through each one again as I always do, just looking for interesting things or geometry and I think "wow, quite a bit of sand is sticking to the wheels. more than I've ever seen in other pics to date" but think nothing more of it. But then I get to the last 2 images from that angle and that "more dirt sticking than normal" turns into very wet sand, to the point where it looks like mud!!

Here's a link to the two images where it's CLEARLY wet. Click on the image to make it more detailed
EDIT- In case it's not clear to you where I'm looking, zoom in to the treads at the very tops of the wheels in the images.

mars.jpl.nasa.gov...

mars.jpl.nasa.gov...

Now, am I just seeing things here? Am I crazy or did that rover just go through a muddy patch of sand? Mind you, it's moving in this series of images. If you look at the 5 or 6 images leading up to this, it seems to be rolling into a gradually more wet area of sand.

Thoughts? A ground spring perhaps? Did it just rain? Am I just crazy?

edit on 11-9-2012 by Larry L because: (no reason given)

edit on 11-9-2012 by Larry L because: (no reason given)

edit on 11-9-2012 by Larry L because: (no reason given)

I noticed a discoloring in the second pick off in the background, it looks to me like the remains of a river, so the good news is...i dont think you are crazy.

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by Larry L

 

Mars does have an atmosphere, in fact a fairly substatial one. It's just not as heavy/dense as Earth's.

Roughly equivalent at the surface to Earth's atmosphere at something over 100,000 feet. Not exactly substantial. That's why liquid water would not last long.

As much as I hate to just keep this going because I've been typing all day (I can't believe how late it is compared to when I started posting again, time FLEW by and it seems I've wasted one whole day of my life in this thread lol), but between all the landers from which we have ground level Martian pictures going back to Viking, I seem to recall some clouds being filmed. A more recent one was from one of the previous rovers which had a series of photos of the horizon over a few minute span, which were taken and strung together into a video/.gif of clouds going by on a clear day.

Now I KNOW you're about to say "show me this as proof", so don't bother. Now that I'm bringing it up, I'm already gonna go look for it because I recall it too clearly for it not to exist................But the only reason I'm actually bringing this up is to ask a question: Do clouds form that high up on Earth? For clouds to form on Mars if it's surface atmosphere density is equivilent to 100,000 feet on Earth........that bar figure for Mars doesn't make much sense to me. Unless clouds form at over 100k here on Earth, then it's believable.

Originally posted by GoOfYFoOt
I'm no garbage man, but I have to ask. Why, if it is moisture, does it have to be water?
According to the data, the surface of Mars is a bit chilly. Aren't there other gases that could condense to liquid form, that may be more prevalent than H2O?

HEY!!! ... Don't you EVER have an original thought or reasonable question ! !...

just kidding ... that's actually a great point ...

Interesting ideas all around. But you all have forgotten, unless I misread your answers, one simple fact. The pictures we see from the mars Curiosity rover, all of them, let me repeat, all of them, are colored by an artist. Hence whatever you can take away from that you will. I don't trust 'em for factuality as far as that goes.

reply to post by Larry L


I agree, the second picture does look like drying mud.

Originally posted by Larry L

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by Larry L

 

Mars does have an atmosphere, in fact a fairly substatial one. It's just not as heavy/dense as Earth's.

Roughly equivalent at the surface to Earth's atmosphere at something over 100,000 feet. Not exactly substantial. That's why liquid water would not last long.

As much as I hate to just keep this going because I've been typing all day (I can't believe how late it is compared to when I started posting again, time FLEW by and it seems I've wasted one whole day of my life in this thread lol), but between all the landers from which we have ground level Martian pictures going back to Viking, I seem to recall some clouds being filmed. A more recent one was from one of the previous rovers which had a series of photos of the horizon over a few minute span, which were taken and strung together into a video/.gif of clouds going by on a clear day.

Now I KNOW you're about to say "show me this as proof", so don't bother. Now that I'm bringing it up, I'm already gonna go look for it because I recall it too clearly for it not to exist................But the only reason I'm actually bringing this up is to ask a question: Do clouds form that high up on Earth? For clouds to form on Mars if it's surface atmosphere density is equivilent to 100,000 feet on Earth........that bar figure for Mars doesn't make much sense to me. Unless clouds form at over 100k here on Earth, then it's believable.

edit on 11-9-2012 by Larry L because: (no reason given)

Plenty of pictures of clouds on Mars:

Mars Pathfinder

Martian clouds

Many clouds on Mars are made up of water crystals:

Mars has high, thin clouds of water ice.

Clouds Extraterrestrial

And just recently, they've discovered clouds of CO2:

"These are the first definitive detections of carbon-dioxide snow clouds," said the report's lead author, Paul Hayne of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We firmly establish the clouds are composed of carbon dioxide -- flakes of Martian air -- and they are thick enough to result in snowfall accumulation at the surface."

NASA Orbiter Points To Dry Ice Snow Fall

reply to post by Larry L


I wish I could star this post a million times, thank you.