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- Here is a developing listing of curious features on Mars
that I have found in the latest 25,000 Martian photographs released by
Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS). I will list the URLs along with brief
commentary about each. I truly do not know what many of these features
are -- nor, I suspect, do many other people. But I have seen enough in
the several 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. Here are the links to the
photos then, in no particular order:
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- 1) http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/images/M0400334.html
The interesting feature here is the pyramidal, hill feature in the center
of the image. Is it an eroded pyramid? Or just a hill? You decide.
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- 2) http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/images/M0301345.html
Look at the vein-like network in the lower, right-hand corner of the image.
This type of feature recurs at many locations across the planet. Are they
water channels? Coincidentally, the patterns these "veins" form
are reminiscent of the patterns formed by the veins on terrestrial plant
leaves. Now, I am not suggesting that what appears on the Martian images
are huge, plant leaves. However, I wonder if we might not be seeing the
work of some life form that forms these networks. In other words, if the
biological process on Earth produces networks of veins on the leaves of
green plants, then, by analogy, perhaps the networks on Mars that have
somewhat the same appearance might also be the natural result of a life
process, albeit a Martian life process. What might that hypothetical life
process be? I don't know! Perhaps it would be strange, an exobiological
process. Maybe created by animal or plant life we would find different,
although somewhat recognizable; or maybe created by something exotic, like
a silicon-based life form that would appear very strange to us. Might there
be silicon-based life on Mars and might these elaborate "vein-like"
lattices that appear here and there on the Martian surface be the result?
Maybe. And maybe not. Maybe they are just a natural geological feature.
Or maybe they really are the work of an exotic Martian life form. Whatever
the case may be, they do bear closer examination and discussion. There
appear to be many miles of these things scattered across the surface.
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- 3) http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/images/M0400454.html
My eye was drawn to the object in the upper-center portion of the image.
It has a very bright, white albedo on one side, and very dark, almost black
on the other. What is it? And then there are the several, dark black features
in the lower portion of the image. What are they? Holes? Shafts? Entrances?
Burrows? Something else? Natural features? Artificial? Also, notice the
round, button-like features. These knob-like features appear by the thousands
and thousands across the surface of Mars. They don't seem to be meteorite
craters, though it is hard to tell. They are very regular and rounded looking,
and there are no signs of ejecta. They are all over the place. What are
they?
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- 4) http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/images/M0203058.html
Curiouser and curiouser. Here is one of the white, rounded "knobs"
in the center of the image. But what is the white "fog". Is it
a cloud? A mist? A frost on the ground? Perhaps a whitish, lichen-like
life form that covers the surface in patches? An accidental flaw in the
photograph? Air brushing by Malin Space Science Systems to obscure features
they don't want us to see? One of the above? None of the above?
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- 5) http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/images/M0403807.html
Here is an absolute "blank" image. Or is it a patch of solid
"fog", or a "cloud" as seen from above, or a shot of
an extended patch of who-knows-what, or has Malin Space Science Systems
100% air brushed out what someone doesn't want us to see? Or is it just
an accidental flaw in the photograph? One of the above? None of the above?
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- 6) http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/images/M0304528.html
A number of craters have these blotchy, very dark patches on their floors,
that stand in stark contrast to the rest of the surrounding surface. A
crater floor provides a relatively sheltered environment -- I wonder if
these dark blotches might not be some type of life form, perhaps analogous
to terrestrial lichens or mosses that grow in irregular, patch-like communities
here on Earth? The dark color also raises the possibility of a marshy or
boggy micro-environment. NASA and the JPL have conditioned us to think
of Mars as a harsh, ultra-dry world. What if they have misled us and there
really is surface water here and there, as in the floors of some craters?
Here on earth, in the middle of the Nevada desert, for example, you can
find seeps here and there, where springs come burbling up right out of
the desert floor; as a consequence, you find little oases in the middle
of the Nevada desert where you would least expect them. What if something
like that also happens on Mars?
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- 7) http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/images/M0200310.html
This image is similar to the previous one and raises the same questions.
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- 8) http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/images/M0300957.html
More "veins". The result of geological processes and natural
erosion and weathering, or possibly the work of some sort of unknown Martian
life form? You decide.
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- 9) http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/images/M0201124.html
This one is really interesting. I am not a geologist, but it appears that
this image displays the bed of an ancient water channel, that bisects the
photograph horizontally. And smack in the middle of what looks like the
ancient water channel, is a dark, lagoon-like feature. Might this actually
be a lake or pond, containing liquid water?
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- 10) http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/images/M0201126.html
More "veins", a prominent, rounded "knob" (or is it
a "crater"?), and another dark, lagoon-like patch in the right-hand
part of the image.
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- 11) http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/images/M0300654.html
More "knobs" and long, linear "veins". Question: are
the "knobs" life forms? In appearance they resemble the bacterial
colonies that biologists culture in their laboratories on Petri dishes.
Might the knobs be huge colonies of organisms that grow clump-like all
across the Martian surface, drawing nutrients from the rock and soil? Are
they perhaps in a symbiotic relationship with the "vein" networks?
Or are both the "veins" and the "knobs" simply natural,
geologic features?
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- 12) http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/images/M0304582.html
Notice the fingerlike projection that extends from right to left across
the image. There is a linear feature that is arrayed perpendicular to it,
on the left of the image. What is it? The juxtaposition of the two features
has an "arranged" feel to it. In the lower, right-hand corner
there is another, irregular dark blotch that is situated in what appears
to be the bed of an ancient water channel. A lake?
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- 13) http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/images/M0204841.html
More "veins" and "knobs". What are the "veins"?
Water channels? Tunnels? Natural features? Artificial constructs? Exotic
life forms? And the "knobs"? Are they craters? Natural geologic
features? Colony-like life forms that grow in a circular form, in an analogous
fashion to certain molds and fungi here on Earth?
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- I do not pretend to know what the anomalous features
that appear in the images above represent. I have asked questions and posited
hypothetical answers simply as a means of provoking wider debate. Mars
is a different world, a world with a different history, a different climate,
a different geology. And if there is life there, it may be very, very different
from the life forms we are familiar with here on the Earth. Look at the
images with an open mind and use the questions I have posed only as a point
of departure. I may be right, or very nearly right in some of my suppositions.
Or I may be completely wrong. But isn't it all very curious? And the closer
you look at the surface of Mars the more fascinating it becomes. I will
continue to browse these thousands of new MSSS images and I hope many of
you will do the same. If you find something interesting, send me the URL
at: dr_samizdat@hotmail.com
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