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- Here are more curious features on Mars that are in the
latest 25,000 Martian photographs released by Malin Space Science Systems
(MSSS). I have seen enough in the many hours I have already spent browsing
the flood of new images from Mars to think that the so-called "Face
on Mars" may be the least of the mysteries Earth's neighbor holds.
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- 1) http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/images/M0105433.html
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- What are the curious dark lines in this image? Fractures
in the surface rock? Cracks in the permafrost (assuming there might be
Martian permafrost)? Something else, like a web or a network or filaments
of some sort of life? Notice the dark lines terminate in the near vicinity
of what seems to be the lip of a shallow crater that is visible in the
left side of the image. However, one of them extends well outside the crater
rim at about the two o'clock position.
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- 2) http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/images/M0104420.html
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- What is this? It looks like a rille, or ancient stream
bed covered with a layer of rippled, washboarded sand and/or gravel. But
can that actually be a fog or a haze that lines both sides of the channel?
Is it actually a Martian fog? Or has Malin's magic, digitally obscuring
air brush been at work again to prevent us from noticing something he would
rather be kept obscured? What do you think?
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- 3) http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/images/M0301605.html
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- Another crater with a huge, dark "splotch"
inside it. I can think of at least three possibilities for the many, many
such craters with dark "splotches". The "splotches"
are: 1) underlying dark rock exposed by the scouring action of wind; 2)
air born dark material deposited in craters by the wind; 3) communities
of Martian life forms that may be akin to terrestrial lichens that grow
in crater bottoms because the "bowl" of the crater offers a relatively
sheltered environment, compared to environmental conditions outside the
crater bowl. All three possibilities are hypotheses on my part. Maybe one
of them is right; or maybe they are all wrong. Remember, Mars is another
world and what we assume we know, based on our terrestrial fund of knowledge,
may not carry us very far there!
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- 4) http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/images/M0300347.html
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- Here is what appears to be a wide, ancient water channel
with a "splotch" in the middle. I have noticed a handful of ancient
water channels that have such "splotches" in them. If, indeed,
the "splotches" represent some sort of life form, then crater
bowls and the beds of ancient waterways are logical places to find them.
Why? Because whatever moisture exists on Mars would tend to collect in
depressions, funneled there by the natural influence of gravity. Remember,
such moisture could conceivably flow in the subsurface, just as groundwater
does here on Earth. Anyone who has hiked in the desert knows that vegetation
will often be found in, or near, seemingly "dry" stream beds.
That is because water is slowly flowing in the sand and gravel of the stream
bed, but below the surface. The vegetation sends its root system down to
the water. Might we be looking at communities of Martian life forms that
cluster above and/or near scarce subsurface water deposits?
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- 5) http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/images/M0204557.html
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- Filaments, from the northern plains. Are they permafrost
cracks? A complex fracture zone in the rock? A complex network of life
forms, that spreads like a web across the surface? Something else?
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- 6) http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/images/M0203245.html
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- Another of the many, many craters with a dark splotch.
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- 7) http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/images/M0201821.html
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- Pasteur Crater. Of course, Louis Pasteur was the famous
19th century French bacteriologist who conducted so much pioneering biological
research. Are we being dropped a broad hint by those who name and photograph
Martian craters that we should look closer at this crater for signs of
Martian biology? Perhaps we are, for this particular image comes with a
particularly revealing close view of part of its "splotch". The
"splotch" turns out to be composed of myriad smaller, irregular
"splotches" that when viewed from afar appear to be one huge,
uniform "splotch". So what are we looking at? Dark rocks, poking
up through a lighter colored covering of soil and rock? Dark colored sand
and grit blown in on the wind and deposited on the crater floor? Or maybe
myriad small communities of Martian life forms, clinging to the rock, here
and there? If so, there are terrestrial precedents for this sort of community.
For example, in south Texas, USA, there is a huge mass of solid granite
rock, called "Enchanted Rock", that comes rearing straight up
out of the ground. A stupendously huge, natural monolith. Most impressive.
As you climb this enormous rock, you will discover that its surface is
pockmarked all over with shallow scoops and depressions that have filled
with dirt blown in by the wind. Seeds of grasses and small plants have
taken root, and even small aquatic plants and animals have made their homes
there in the small pools that fill from rain water. So there you are, hundreds
of feet up, climbing the side of a stupendously huge block of granite that
contains little terrariums and aquariums in small scoops and hollows scattered
across its face. Perhaps we are seeing something similar here, in this
close view of Pasteur Crater's "splotch". Is it possible? Or
are we only looking at rocks, sand and dirt?
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- 8) http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/images/M0302686.html
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- And then this one: "Stratigraphy traverse on plains
north of Deuteronilus." Something about this image drew my eye. There
are enough rectilinear features here, faint, but discernible nonetheless,
that I have included it for your consideration. There are several parallel
grooves and markings visible to the naked eye. (I am not talking about
the many parallel lines that run the length of the photo and which are
an artifact of the imaging process.) I simply do not know if there is,
or was, perhaps in remote antiquity, a technologically capable species
of life on Mars. But if there is, or was, and if there are traces in the
landscape of the activities of such a species, then perhaps that is what
is visible here. Or are these parallel, rectilinear lines and grooves simply
natural geologic features? From this remove, and with the available evidence,
it is impossible to say.
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- 9) http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/images/M0200932.html
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- Finally, an example of what Malin and the JPL refer to
as "fretted terrain". There is a lot of this on Mars. I include
it for its sheer, raw beauty. And by the way, there's another dark "splotch"
on the left-hand side of the image. There seem to be a lot of them.
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