Speculation

[woodchip]

About Mars Curiosity, NASA has said:

" "Nasa are set to reveal what could be the most significant scientific discovery in modern times, teasingly stating they have unearthed something on Mars 'for the history books'."

Anyone have any inside info?

[flip]

I watched a show a few days back where people said there were ancient remains on Mars. They showed pictures of what looked like tubes under ground, just barely visible from the air. It went on to say that people were teleporting to Mars so........
The pictures on the other hand definitely didn't look like natural formations.

[flip]

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2012/11 ... z2DFnJkIhv

I am still curious as hell to what it is.

[Top Gun]

That picture is almost certainly of a lava tube from ancient volcanic activity. I've seen pictures of lava tubes on Mars, and they look exactly like that; over time, the rock above the tubes eroded, so we can now see right down into them. Lava tubes also form right here on Earth.

[flip]

That's what I'm inclined to think too.

[roid]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/acros ... -life-mars
"Curiosity is not a life detection mission. We're not actually looking for life; we don't have the ability to detect life if it was there."
...
Following up the internet speculation, Jeffrey Kluger of Time talked to Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory spokesperson Guy Webster and was told, "It won't be earthshaking, but it will be interesting."
...
We know that it comes from the analysis of a soil sample using SAM, the on-board mini laboratory for sample analysis. The smart money is on a detection of so-called organic molecules. While scientifically important, organic molecules do not necessarily mean life.
"Organic" in this context is a somewhat misleading term used to describe chemical compounds made from carbon bonded to hydrogen. They are essential for life, but not necessarily evidence of life because such molecules can be built from simple chemical reactions.
...
All of the speculation (this blogpost included) will end on 3 December 2012. That is when we will learn the results at a press conference to be held at the American Geophysical Union, San Fransisco.
--------------

The pictures on the other hand definitely didn't look like natural formations.

That picture is almost certainly of a lava tube from ancient volcanic activity

That's what I'm inclined to think too.

... so it definitely doesn't look like a natural formation, it instead looks like a natural formation. Right - gotcha.

You're right. It definitely looks nothing like a natural formation, it's instead: a natural formation. I mean it can't be a natural formation if it's also a natural formation. Lava tubes arn't natural formations, they are natural formations. They look nothing like natural formations because they instead look like natural formations. It's defininitely not a natural formation, thus i'm inclined to think it's a natural formation.
whatamireadingohgodiminaparalleluniversearnti

[flip]

Na the pictures I saw were color and they definitely had a metallic sheen to them. In those pictures, which I could not find online, they looked unnatural, but were probably manipulated but since I hardly care, I didn't feel like rambling on an on and on and on and on about some crap none of us can ever "know" until were told. I don't have the money to fund a trip to Mars so I'll just take their word for it.

[flip]

Since I'm in a humorous mood this morning. If someone can find a lava tube from earth that has the same striations as the ones on Mars (I can't) so we could compare. It is curious as to why the ones on Mars striate the way they do.

EDIT: I *think this is the one i saw colorized. Definitely does seem to be highly reflective in tht one spot and not following the path of last resistance, unless of course it's been manipulated too. I do honestly think, "it's just a lava tube." is a highly speculative and simple answer for a hearty, "we don't know yet."

[woodchip]

Translucent lava tubes...yeah, I'd buy that

[Top Gun]

...translucent? Which picture are you looking at?

And those striations are almost certainly erosion patterns or dune formations. Remember, there's a shitload of dust blowing around Mars.

[woodchip]

Try this. Somehow I don't think erosion is causing striations to go completely around the tube.

[flip]

I think it's very possible Mars could have been inhabited at one time. Considering how life here transformed with each changing of the atmosphere, why not? I think it's a bad idea to try and explain too many things on Mars from what we know of the Earth for that very reason. The atmospheric conditions are completely different. It's obvious that whatever structures are there, they were formed independant of the surrouding soil. The soil eroded and left them there intact. Not at all like we see lava tubes here, which basically just leave voids. These seem to have some kind of skin to them.

[flip]

Maybe something like this!

[youtube]LOLbUMCRzNM[/youtube]

[Top Gun]

Try this. Somehow I don't think erosion is causing striations to go completely around the tube.

I think you're missing something here. These pictures aren't of completely-enclosed tubes; they're structures whose tops have been eroded over time, exposing the bottom to the open air. They're essentially really long half-pipes. (Hmm...maybe we should send up Shaun White on an exploratory mission.) Because of this, the striations essentially being sand dunes makes perfect sense: within the crevice, the wind is going to primarily flow in one direction, so you see dunes form perpendicular to the wind direction, just as they do in deserts here on Earth.

And flip, while the atmospheric density and composition on Mars are different from those on Earth, the fundamental atmospheric processes are pretty much exactly the same. Mars experiences regular weather events, most notably massive dust storms, but there are even comparable events on the smaller scale; one of the twin rovers picked up a really cool sequence of images showing little dust devils forming and moving across the Martian surface. We've seen dunes form and move just as they do on Earth, and there are visible erosion patterns all over the place just like those in any dry, dusty/sandy location around here. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...well, you do the math.

[flip]

Well, my point is that it's very likely that Mars' atmosphere has went through at least as many changes as our own, and is wholly different now, or not, it could be very similar. How do you explain the dirt eroding away and still leaving a ceiling? Or better yet, show me one tube formed here on Earth that the whole thing didn't just collapse when it was exposed? Jury's still out on this one Bud.

[Top Gun]

Changes in atmospheric composition wouldn't have anything to do with whether wind blows or not. And there IS no ceiling...that's my entire point. The top of the tube has been completely eroded away over millions of years, and the bottom half of the tube is all that remains.

[flip]

You can tell all of this from that picture? NASA's loss I guess

EDIT: On a more serious note, these tubes are probably the most interesting and controversial feature on Mars, I can't believe after all the time and money spent to send a probe there, we are not concentrating more of our efforts on them. Seems they could tell alot about the place, seeing how prevelant they are.

EDIT: This is an interesting read
The update at the bottom in particular. I think ice formations is a reasonable assumption, although I like my snakeskin hypothesis better

[Top Gun]

I can tell what this is from the picture because it looks exactly like pictures of other lava tube formations on Mars...because it's a lava tube. You're basically asking me how I can tell that the picture of a mountain is a mountain. Granted, there's a bit of uncertainty here, since we're looking at a satellite image of another planet, but if you have a geological structure in a volcanic region of Mars that's essentially half of a tube, and we know that lava tubes form on Earth as part of volcanic activity, a simple application of Occam's Razor suggests what it most likely is.

And that website you linked is nothing but conspiracy theory nonsense. The person's operating on the hypothesis that a little rock formation on the upper-left is some sort of mysterious "face," which...yeah.

[flip]

It's obvious you didn't read the whole thing, so not much else we can do here. If you had at least looked at the very last part you would see he agreed that ice formations are much more likely, especially considering the contrast in reflectiveness in the tube formation compared to the surrounding area. Not to mention the one part that actually looks domed, you know, the most reflective part in that picture. Faces, meh. I say ice formations too. I also think you may lack depth perception, not your fault, but maybe you should have someone else check that out for you too

EDIT: Just to cut you a little bit of slack, I see no "contruct: as this guy does but i found his calculations helpful "just" pertaining to scale. To his credit, he readily admits that they look exactly like ice formations seen right here on earth. No big deal, you see sand dunes, I see ice formations. One thing I'm not gonna do is argue it from a position of certainty

[Top Gun]

It's obvious you didn't read the whole thing, so not much else we can do here. If you had at least looked at the very last part you would see he agreed that ice formations are much more likely, especially considering the contrast in reflectiveness in the tube formation compared to the surrounding area. Not to mention the one part that actually looks domed, you know, the most reflective part in that picture. Faces, meh. I say ice formations too. I also think you may lack depth perception, not your fault, but maybe you should have someone else check that out for you too

I did at least skim through the whole page, and the vast majority of it was nonsense...not to mention the other content contained on that site. The author plainly has no grounding in the topics they're trying to deal with, and it shows. Regarding the ice idea, water ice simply can't exist over much of Mars's surface; the temperature and pressure combination means that the ice will sublime directly into water vapor. It's only at the poles that the temperatures are cold enough to allow surface ice to exist. That aside, nothing about that picture suggests to me that the structure is convex instead of concave, though there's an easy definite way to find out. We have topographic maps of Mars's entire surface, so why doesn't this author just grab the relevant location data?

As far as depth perception goes...dude, it's a 2D photograph. No one can utilize depth perception on a 2D image, because it doesn't apply.

[flip]

Well, post some topographic data then, the one picture I keep pointing to definitely seems to cast a shadow and has a sheen to it, but your right, topographic maps would put an end to whether it's a "natural" structure of some kind or like you say, just erosion. Like they always say, pictures or it didn't happen

EDIT: You do realize that no one is disputing the use of the word "tubes" which in itself implies structure?

EDIT: Couldn't find topographic data, imagine I just don't know where to look, this one pic gives a good perspective though, looks like dunes here:



I'd love to find topographic data for the pic with the shiny object though

[woodchip]

Try this. Somehow I don't think erosion is causing striations to go completely around the tube.

I think you're missing something here. These pictures aren't of completely-enclosed tubes; they're structures whose tops have been eroded over time, exposing the bottom to the open air. They're essentially really long half-pipes. (Hmm...maybe we should send up Shaun White on an exploratory mission.) Because of this, the striations essentially being sand dunes makes perfect sense: within the crevice, the wind is going to primarily flow in one direction, so you see dunes form perpendicular to the wind direction, just as they do in deserts here on Earth.

I don't know what you're looking at but I see striations that are completely round with a doughnut hole in the middle. Please show me how this can be done with half a sphere. Show me somewhere on earth anything even remotely like sand dunes forming circles inside of a tube (even a eroded tube). So unless you can show examples of your "perfect sense" explanation then I suggest you are just fishing for a explanation.

What I think we can rule out so far are basaltic lava tubes that have somehow erode and left some sort of crystalline inner lining exposed.
We can also rule out a series of sand dunes in a half tube. If that were the case would not the tips of the crescent shapes be pointing upwards instead of down?
If these are half tubes then would they have not filled completely by sand. As it is the tubes look to be sitting above ground and somehow are keeping clean enough for their reflectivity to be high.

And flip, while the atmospheric density and composition on Mars are different from those on Earth, the fundamental atmospheric processes are pretty much exactly the same. Mars experiences regular weather events, most notably massive dust storms, but there are even comparable events on the smaller scale; one of the twin rovers picked up a really cool sequence of images showing little dust devils forming and moving across the Martian surface. We've seen dunes form and move just as they do on Earth, and there are visible erosion patterns all over the place just like those in any dry, dusty/sandy location around here. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...well, you do the math.

Except if you look at the surrounding area (the site allows you to click on pic for contectural relationship of surrounding area) you will see it is devoid of sand. Not exactly a desert area unlike other areas of Mars. And remember, atmospheric pressure is so low on Mars that it would take wind blown sand like forever to erode something.

[flip]

I do find this picture of particular interest. It actually shows the dunes descending down into this huge cavern even, seems something other than wind being responsible. The dunes are clinging vertically to the side of the crater! Is wind also being directed down into crater itself? That seems to go against conventional wisdom.

[flip]

You know, if you look at the tubes that have not collapsed, you could almost picture them as tubes with discs evenly spaced. Weirdness, because the "dunes" would prevent any kind of real flow within them and they are definitely made of some kind of hardened substance. I'm even more intrigued now.



EDIT: Hell, it may be some kind of fossil.
Dunno

[woodchip]

flip, in your image (which is quite good) if the striations were dunes as TG suggests, then how can they be aligned in 3 different directions at the same spot? Surrounding topography channeling the winds to cause that? As to fossils, you realize some of these formations are kilometers long?

[Alter-Fox]

That picture is almost certainly of a lava tube from ancient volcanic activity. I've seen pictures of lava tubes on Mars, and they look exactly like that; over time, the rock above the tubes eroded, so we can now see right down into them. Lava tubes also form right here on Earth.

And the CED creates them artificially on Virage...
@Roid sometimes reality is unrealistic; sometimes nature looks unnatural. I think it's pretty cool how our view of "realism" is really so subjective.

[flip]

Yeah, I don't ascribe to the dune theory at all now. They are definitely some kind of hardened substance or they would not be clinging to the vertical side of that cavern. Then, I look at the last picture I posted, and the same striations are visible in the tunnels that are not collapsed. So I pictured a tube with discs spaced throughout. So maybe the hardened discs are already present and the collapses just exposes them, rather than some kind of buildup after the fact. Kinda hard to explain any kind of flow creating them if they are in fact already incased within the intact tubes too.

As far as fossils go, I think anything's possible and scale doesn't deter me, especially considering some kind of worm. Worms were the first life-forms to form here and considering the size of some dinosaurs, who knows. After seeing the size of some tapeworms coming out of folks, nothing would surprise me . I'm convinced the striations are not sediment though, or they would have been displaced in the collapse. I wish like hell we had the capability to go to an intact tunnel and bust it open to see if those discs are solid top to bottom. The last picture I posted sure seems to suggest it by the ridges present.

[flip]

Another thing of interest in that picture showing the exposed ridges, is the shiny object. There is another uprising showing exactly the same reflectivity top center as the one that I've been pondering over. Right next to that smaller, rounded crater.

EDIT: The ridges on the left side also seem to go underground, but at the same time it looks like that smaller crater top center spewed debris out and covered it.



Also to note that the striations were not displaced but held intact when recovered.

[Top Gun]

Man I'm not even sure who's claiming what in here anymore.

I really really do not see how anyone can look at any of these images and get the idea that they're some sort of structures popping out of the terrain, as opposed to trenches dug into it. From the viewpoint of an overhead satellite image like these, something rising out of the ground would look completely different...the generated shadows and relationship to the surrounding terrain just don't match that interpretation. Far more telling than that, though, are the parts of the images where these formations open up into the surrounding terrain. You can clearly see the sides drop down and expand out, just like any valley or gorge opening here. I almost feel like breaking out my mad MSPaint skeelz if even that doesn't get across.

For the dunes inside the gorges, didn't you guys ever dig trenches as part of building a sand castle at the beach as kids? (Or hell, even as adults...sand castles are awesome.) If you dig a moat or trench, then leave it alone for a while and come back, you'll probably find that wind-blown dry sand has filled it in somewhat, forming something of a U-shape that stretches up the walls. It's pretty much the same exact shape that these striations are making in these pictures, and for the same exact reason. Up to a certain critical angle, sand does a good job of supporting itself, which is why we have sloped sand dunes in the first place. As for that picture where you have dunes in different gorges oriented in different ways, that makes perfect sense too. By default, winds will always follow the path of least resistance, which is why if you're standing down in a canyon, any wind you feel will be along its length, not across its width. Each of those different gorges show the results of wind running along their lengths in their respective directions; each one's interior is isolated from the others, so the winds

And while Mars does have a substantially-lower atmospheric pressure than Earth does, it also experiences some seriously strong winds, enough to create dust storms that engulf almost the entire planet. Take a look at these awesome images to see some examples of those storms in action, and the effects that they can cause. Remember, we're talking about the effects of erosion over what's possibly millions of years...given that amount of time, and crazy winds blowing dust around, you're going to see some really significant effects.

I really would love to take a closer topological look at the spots in some of these images; I'm sure they'd look awesome in 3D in the Mars portion of Google Earth, or even a 2D topological map that shows altitude information. Unfortunately, unless the pages you found them on happen to include the coordinates where they were taken, it'd kind of be like looking for a needle in a stack of needles.