Seems Gil Levin's son found some puddles in MER rover images.

http://space.newscientist.com/articl...s-surface.html

http://tinyurl.com/2sxezk

Bob...

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The author suggests that a brine would not freeze - brine at the eutectic point, the strongest possible solution, freezes at -21C. So it might be liquid on a sunny day.

But even the strongest brine would evaporate to dry salt - we have done this merely by sunlight on Earth for centuries. And the brine must freeze in the Martian night. That will cause the dissolved salts to precipitate out, and the much purer ice will sublime.

Is it really possible that liquid brine could survive on the Martian surface? That flat deposit may be the relic of a puddle, but not an actual one.

John

The main problem is that the image in question is on a 20-30 degree slope on the inside of Endurance crater. Even Brine can't pool on a slope There are a lot of holes in this 'paper'..and one has to wonder - why submit it to the IEEE - an engineering paper...surely it should be going to Science or Nature etc.

Doug

Please elaborate on how freezing brine will cause the salts to precipitate out (separate from water?).

I am not aware of any such process.

Are you saying near freezing water will dissolve less salt than warmer water? If so why wouldn't it dissolve it back when it gets warmer?

Hi Doug,

Long time no see,

Brine won't pool over a slope, but why wouldn't it flow over one? Fluids flow over all sorts of steep and vertical slopes on Earth.

They don't say it's a flowing feature - they're saying that this is a pool - and even describe it as on a crater floor. The first is impossible on the slope here - the second is an outright lie.

Then - they also say that it is absolutely flat - but without features to derive topography - self contradictory. Myself and a few others had to double check this wasn't an april fool it's so full of holes.

Some fluids might exist transiently on the surface - but this isn't it and they just after tabloid hype with the nonsense in their 'paper'.

Doug

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I quite agree, this is really shonky journalism.

First, it has been suspected for decades that ephemeral moisture is present on the surface of Mars. Plus of course the evidence of rescent episodic fluid flow. So the news of this story isn't really news.

Second, the image choice used to illustrate the story is verging on the dishonest. It looks like puddles of blue water. However, the image is of gutters on the wall of Endurance crater which slope at 20-30 degrees. Water will not puddle on slopes. Second the blue is false colour, the bluest parts of the image are in fact due to haematite.

Either of the authors have aby real expertise in planetary science, nor are they publishing in a planetary science journal but in an engineering one. This does not mean that they are wrong, but does mean that the competence of authors and the quality of the peer review must be treated with caution.

The only real news is that is this yet another claim by Ron Levin who seems determined to vindicate his father's claims about Mars. Gil Levin did great work on deleoping life detection experiments in the 60's that culimated in the Viking mission, But he has over the years become increasinglyt strident in asserting that his experimental results were not simply consistent with biology, but were definitely due to biology. He further more has been associated with the blue sky and green rocks on Mars crows and associated claims of NASA cover ups, and with the campaign against Mars sample return.

Jon

This is the original image.

It may be they are wrong. But that doesn't mean that are lying about what their opinions are. It happens all the time that there are disagreements about what the scientific evidence shows.


Bob Clark

They've never seen fine sand?

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No - saying that the image in question is at the bottom of a crater is an out and out lie It takes 10 seconds to find out where Opportunity was when you're looking at data - and they intentionally avoided doing so. It's part of the BURNS CLIFF panorama for gods sake - CLIFF. Doesn't that tell them something?

It would be like taking a picture of a real puddle on earth and saying "look - I took this picture on the side of a hill - the water isn't running away! Gravity is defeated!"

Here's an MER independant interpretation of the calibrated data by Dan Lyle - brilliant understanding of colour science - processed to assume an automated white balance.
http://www.lyle.org/~markoff/pds/257...2273L257C1.JPG

Notice this official Pancam team image - a FALSE COLOUR image
http://pancam.astro.cornell.edu/panc...L257_pos_2.jpg

This is an estimated true colour rendering - note that the frame in question is slap bang in the middle of this 180 degree mosaic....compare to the horizon at each edge.....and they're saying that it's a little pond of water? It's at 30, 40 or more degrees!
http://pancam.astro.cornell.edu/panc...cliff_new.html

This really isn't science - it's comedy.

I find it very VERY hard to believe that the people responsible for this 'paper' were ignorant of these facts - and if they were - then peer review should riddle it with holes - hence why it's destined for an engineering paper - where those reviewing it wil not know the science involved.

OK, their arguments may be wrong and it could even be foolish.
But I don't agree that the authors of the report were intentionally lying about what they believe to be the case.


Bob Clark

We anxiously await their retraction.

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In that case, they are monumentally incompetant - and so is the journal publishing their 'paper'. To just pick a single image and fail to investigate its orientation, context, filters used etc - it's totally unscientific.

Doug

For the record here is a x-eyed view by hortonheardawho of "Mars Rover Blog" fame.

Thanks for the link Maksutov,

I fail to see how from this it can be concluded that brine can not exist on Mars. As Salt water can exist in Siberian ditches on Earth, why not on Mars? Ice sublimes on Earth but the water cycle ensures that it exists at all times on Earth. (note:water cycle <> rain)


I agree that the article seems to have misinformation as to "The imaging shows that the areas occupy the lowest parts of the terrain", but it would be totally illogical for anyone to claim that as a lie in a paper rather than as an error. No one would gain anything by lying in a scientific paper when it can be easily disproved. Has anyone considered that the image might not be part of the original paper and that there are many other "pond" like looking features imaged that may or may not be on a steep enough slope? I don't know the slope of this cavity. I do know the waves on the feature are solid as the different channels of the color image were acquired minutes apart.


That would be a natural reaction to NASA's repeated official and false statements that all Viking tests were negative.(note: negative <> false or inconclusive)

Yeah. When I read that it was one of those "what the heck" moments. Even the image with "bluish" regions is ridiculous as it is a colorized black and white image.

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This is a great example of why we need people on Mars. The rovers designers simply didn't anticipate it running into puddles of water, and thus it can't tell us anything about them, even that they definitely are puddles.

Astronauts encountering something utterly unforseen such as this would be able to get started on the science straight away, without waiting for another rover to be designed, built, and sent to Mars.

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Portions of the 'level' areas could be like a 'stepped terrace' type of terrain where the top part of the image is higher in elevation than the botttom portion of the image...BUT...in between there could be several 'level' areas with reguards to Mars' center of gravity...THUS...water could FLOW from the upper level ground and spill downward into the level areas until they fill up, making a small puddle, those fill up and spill over.

And we have to remember that the SURFACE temperature HAS been measured as high as 70 degrees farenheit. Also as the whole planet is on a warming trend more H2O is going from the poles into the atmosphere and increasing the air pressure. Until we send some METEROLOGICAL instruments that are moveable to measure that type data at different heights we will not have any scientific certainty. Why haven't they done something like this?...because we have only ROCK hounds in charge of Mars exploration...it's time for a change.

Bob...

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First of all the image is NOT...repeat NOT...'false color'.

I have REPEATED Ron Levin's proccessing of Opportunity's SOL 290 image using the standard MER filters NASA uses for many many of their own TRUE COLOR images...Red-L2 Green-L5 Blue-L7 and I got the same results which can be viewed in hires gif image here:

http://home.thirdage.com/Teaching/rh...290puddles.gif

As for being inside a 'crater' I repeat a portion of what I stated elsewhere:

Portions of the 'level' areas could be like a 'stepped terrace' type of terrain where the top part of the image is higher in elevation than the botttom portion of the image...BUT...in between there could be several 'level' areas with reguards to Mars' center of gravity...THUS...water could FLOW from the upper level ground and spill downward into the level areas until they fill up, making a small puddle, those fill up and spill over.

And we have to remember that the SURFACE temperature HAS been measured as high as 70 degrees farenheit. Also as the whole planet is on a warming trend more H2O is going from the poles into the atmosphere and increasing the air pressure.

The 'blue' MAY indeed be hematite residue...but it is NOT hematite DUST because the higher ROCK portions would HAVE to have it also if this was fine hematite dust kicked up by the wind...the ROCKS are entirely TRUE COLOR GREY...NO BLUE except for the nodules.

Come up with a better 'scientific' explanation folks.

I have CORRECTLY reproduced Levin's image processing. Try it for yourself.

Here are the 3 raw images with proper filters:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/galle...P2273L2M1.HTML

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/galle...P2273L5M1.HTML

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/galle...P2273L7M1.HTML

Bob...
http://www.commonsensecentral.blogspot.com/

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Say what you mean and mean what you say.

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Hi rhw007,
I just sent you a private message.