Fossilized Spines and Vertebrae of Big Creatures in Curiosity Sol 109!

This is why its not a far reach for 1 to assume there ARE skeletons ect on the surface, those don't even have to be the related to EA*RTH interest... Those can be animals that didn't get to retreat-hide-vaulted? I think the more interesting finds are inside. To add if fossil fuels are from species of the past here, apply to other planets MOONS and what materials-fuels propellants could exist?

reply to post by Ophiuchus 13


Just a quick off-side off-topic question if you may.

Why do you always spell Earth as " EA*RTH"???

What's that supposed to signify?



Sorry for the off-topic, it won't happen again -- but that question has been bugging me for some time now.

Originally posted by Chamberf=6
reply to post by Ophiuchus 13

 

Just a quick off-side off-topic question if you may.

Why do you always spell Earth as " EA*RTH"???

What's that supposed to signify?



Sorry for the off-topic, it won't happen again -- but that question has been bugging me for some time now.

edit on 3/2/2013 by Chamberf=6 because: (no reason given)

Its out of Respect for LORD ENKI or EA who came here on a STAR* (what ever you consider them.

*(*)* to be) So I spell EA*RTH in that fashion here on this interwebs connections, Chamberf=6

NAMASTE*******

reply to post by ArMaP




Namaste*******

There is a lot of wind and sand erosion on Mars. I doubt that a fossil could remain intact on the ground for many years before a human probe could come and film it.

Compelling images indicating Mars surface harbors traces of complex life forms. Thanks for sharing, Arke.

smilodon

Originally posted by Pauligirl

Originally posted by Pauligirl

I had emailed Alan Boyle who writes the Cosmic Log for NBCnews.com about this but never heard back. I've now sent an email to:
Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
[email protected]

If I get anything back, I'll post it.

Got an answer, but it seems to be a standard form letter

As for life on Mars, Curiosity does not carry experiments to detect active processes that would signify present-day biological metabolism, nor does it have the ability to image microorganisms or their fossil equivalents.

Thanks Pauli...I imagine NASA would have to modify that statement if they snapped a pic of ET giving the rover the finger Camera's apparently don't count as equipment capable of detecting life?

That said...extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and whatever this pic is "eroded rocks" or "fossilized vertabrae" the Pic alone will never be "proof". I would have liked more informed opinions though and am dissapointed we didn't get them. A field geologist with some exposure to spacerocks, meteorites, NASA etc. who could explain erosion and rock materials on mars...or Paleoanthropolist well experienced with fossilized skeletal remains of uncommon beasts. I would have liked to see strong arguments, rather than quick opinions.

Well done, it certainly looks like you are on to something.

reply to post by Char-Lee


Because we actually know quite a lot about Mars. Arguably, we know more about Mars than our own Oceans.

I'm just copy pasting their thoughts with a few of my own.

Originally posted by ArMaP

The following is my opinion as a member participating in this discussion.

Originally posted by Arken
But this NASA statement is Amazing!

Amazing? Why?

Why a dozen of billions for this missions? Detect sand? False cololors of Mars? Out of focus photos? CGI video of Mars? Only entertainment.....

Oh, you have been talking about Curiosity all this time and you didn't even know what the mission was supposed to be? Didn't you had any "curiosity" about it?

Maybe a better name for the NASA Rover: STUPIDITY!

No, the rover is doing what it was supposed to do, no stupidity in that.
NASA is not responsible for what other people think, specially people that are ignorant of NASA's missions and expect NASA to do whatever they dream about.

As an ATS Staff Member, I will not moderate in threads such as this where I have participated as a member.

I would not be so hard on our friend here, he has certainly attained enough content and respect in his threads, not to be subjected to that kind or rhetoric. He is frustrated, like many of us, that a mission like this will not do more analysis in areas where it seems obvious that science may come out of it.

This mission DOES have the discovery of life as one of it's key goals. NASA really said it themselves in the mission overview:

Curiosity carries the most advanced payload of scientific gear ever used on Mars’ surface, a payload more than 10 times as massive as those of earlier Mars rovers. Its assignment: Investigate whether conditions have been favorable for microbial life and for preserving clues in the rocks about possible past life.

Here the operative words are "preserving clues in the rocks about possible past life". That means that if there is a "clue", you check it out. There are no doubt, clues here that should be checked out. And, there IS an instrument on this rover that can determine if material is organic. It is called the "ChemCam":

An instrument named ChemCam uses laser pulses to vaporize thin layers of material from Martian rocks or soil targets up to 7 meters (23 feet) away. It includes both a spectrometer to identify the types of atoms excited by the beam, and a telescope to capture detailed images of the area illuminated by the beam. The laser and telescope sit on the rover’s mast and share with the Mast Camera the role of informing researchers’ choices about which objects in the area make the best targets for approaching to examine with other instruments

We use spectrometers on Earth to determine if a material is organic. Find organic, then find life.

Organic matter (or organic material, natural organic matter, NOM) is matter composed of organic compounds that has come from the remains of once-living organisms such as plants and animals and their waste products in the environment.

Even if the majority of science experiments that this package can operate on are geology centric, it does have the underlying mission of finding life , or evidence that it exists. I , and I am sure that a lot of others, would like to see that "ChemCam" used to zap a piece of that suspected bone fragment, just for the science of it.

Source:
NASA Curiosity Media Fact Sheet

At the risk of resurrecting this dead(?) thread, I will say this.

There is a lot of wind and sand erosion on Mars. I doubt that a fossil could remain intact on the ground for many years before a human probe could come and film it.

Yes, this is what we are led to believe, however there are plenty of still-rough rocks out there with very sharp edges and very strangely 'weathered' shapes. I wonder if the wind and the particles carried by the wind can account for all the shapes?

There has already been given a lot of time arguing that there is very little pressure and that the wind blows for millions of years without any appreciable 'weathering', yet in other places we have small rocks eroded so that they stand on pillars left by the 'wind'. My favourite argument is about 5mm blueberries which would not take much to blow around. However, these are not collected into piles in the lee of rocks by the wind. I cannot work this out.

Perhaps it is time to start asking yourself some tough questions?

and also say this
There are many strange and wonderful images being released from Mars but the quality of these images for a multi-million dollar project is just laughable. What I would like to see is an image from Curiosity where I can zoom in so that the image becomes a pixellated (yes, real pixels, not compression artifacts) picture. That would be refreshing and show that they were not afraid to show us the 'real-deal'. Anyone who knows where these images are, please post a link.

reply to post by qmantoo

what if they were left behind after a catastrophe and not as a result of slow erosion?

If Mars hasn't had water for over 3 billion years then those "fossils" are extraordinarily well preserved on the surface.

It's not even really fair to compare fossilisation on Mars to Earth as to my knowledge- no one has ever found a fossil of a complex lifeform ( as suggested by the OP) older than 1 billion years old on earth so we have no reference point.

I suspect the additional 2 billion years of environmental pressures on Mars would not leave intact fossils that we would recognise.

I cannot believe this thread is still going when it is based on such a poor topic (lacking any evidence, but awash in assumptions and imagination) for the forum Space Exploration.

Not even skunk Works, but this is in Space Exploration!?!?

Good f-ing grief.

This is a conspiracy forum site so however much you may like to believe that the science forum is above all that, there are still some conspiracies concerning space exploration. Maybe if SOME of these conspiracies were taken seriously instead of the continual sarcasm we all may learn a few things. What has the last post contributed to this thread which is about possible fossilised spines?

Originally posted by qmantoo
What has the last post contributed to this thread which is about possible fossilised spines?

No, this thread is about rocks on Mars.... that some people claim look like a spine!

reply to post by Arken


Sorry, but all I'm seeing are rocks tinted green to make them stand out from all the other rocks on the surface, which then makes them appear to be something more than they are.

reply to post by Chamberf=6


Thanks for your HUGE contribution!!!