The Mars 2020 rover. Credit: NASA/JPL-CALTECH.
May 1, 2017
A new Mars rover.
Sometime in late July or early August 2020 NASA will launch the next Mars lander, based on the design of the Mars Science Laboratory, otherwise known as Curiosity. The Mars 2020 rover includes a new drill design that can collect, sort, and set aside rock and regolith samples for collection by later missions. The rover will also find out if oxygen can be extracted from the Martian atmosphere, look for subsurface water, and identify weather conditions that might affect future human explorers.
The atmosphere on Mars is 100 times thinner and averages 75 degrees colder than Earth. The environment is dry, with only some suggestive experiments indicating the possible presence of water ice. The 2020 rover is also a water hunter, since without water in the form of subsurface ice, the chances of finding life on Mars are slim.
Deep, winding channels on Mars are thought to be from water flowing on the surface in the remote past. In 1997, the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) found layered rock extending for thousands of kilometers that might be due to build-up in water, followed by wind erosion. For that reason, the potential 2020 rover landing sites are in areas with extensive layering. Ever since Viking 1 was launched on August 20, 1975 followed by Viking 2 a month later, planetary scientists have been looking for signs of life on Mars. Viking 1 landed in the western portion of Chryse Planitia, while Viking 2 landed 6700 kilometers away in Utopia Planitia. Both landers analyzed soil samples but found nothing to indicate life.
Active electrical forces almost destroyed Mars at some time in the recent past are, as many Picture of the Day articles argue. The idea is, of course, ignored by consensus science. Until electromagnetic forcefields, plasma discharges, and double layers are studied and understood by planetary scientists, no theory about Mars will be satisfactory.
Powerful plasma discharges affected Mars on a massive scale. There are signs in the north that indicate excavation down to six kilometers below the mean elevation. Some of the shattered rock was accelerated electrically into space; some fell back to the surface, where it was electrically sorted and deposited in hardened layers. Rather than water, it was probably lightning that layered Mars.
The 2020 rover will explore one of three potential landing sites: Columbia Hills, where the Spirit rover met its demise; Jezero Crater, and northeast Syrtis Major. Previous Picture of the Day articles argue that if the environment on Mars was ever one of flowing water and a dense atmosphere, those conditions were completely altered by planet-wide electrical discharges in the recent past. Any open water or possible life forms were disintegrated by catastrophic lightning bolts from a charged object in proximity to Mars. Whatever that object was, it also initiated underground currents of electricity, blasting out gigantic chasms in the Martian surface. The X-ray and gamma-ray emissions (let alone the thermal energy and explosive shockwaves) from such occurrences would be sufficient to irradiate any organism to the point of dissolution.
The layering seen in Schiaparelli Basin, Utopia Planitia, and elsewhere was most likely due to ionic wind deposition and not to rainfall, flooding, or melting ice. Although the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) found what were said to be giant glaciers under mountainous piles of rocks and dirt near the Hellas Basin region, that data is open to other interpretations. There are factors on Mars that are so unlike those on Earth that MRO’s radar could be acting in ways that were unanticipated. Ice may only appear to be the nearest match. Since planetary catastrophes were so all-consuming, it can be generally assumed that no life will be found on Mars.
Stephen Smith
Rough Notes:
Mars Attacks everything!
The exploration of Mars seems to have raised more questions than answers. The latest gathering Martian storm, that may engulf both planets, comes from geological evidence that seems to blow apart all scientific theories to do with the formation of planets, our solar system and geology.
Is Mars, the planet and god of war, about to attack science and everything we think we know and understand? Mars Attacks!
The dilemma has been building for years: Evidence about factors that affect surface temperatures - mainly the energy received from the young sun and the blanketing provided by the planet's atmosphere - adds up to a mismatch with widespread evidence for river networks and lakes on ancient Mars.
Clues such as isotope ratios in today's Martian atmosphere indicate the planet once held a much denser atmosphere than it does now. Yet theoretical models of the ancient Martian climate struggle to produce conditions that would allow liquid water on the Martian surface for many millions of years.
Curiosity rover sharpens paradox of ancient Mars | Phys.org
The Curiosity rover has not discovered any carbonate minerals in large enough detectable amounts, in what geologists describe as ancient lake bedrock. Meaning that there was insignificant carbon dioxide in Mars atmosphere at the time, they suggest 3.5 billion years ago.
When this is combined with the faint young sun paradox it is a real puzzle and seems to destroy the scientific mathematical computer models and explanations.
We've been particularly struck with the absence of carbonate minerals in sedimentary rock the rover has examined, said Thomas Bristow of NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California. It would be really hard to get liquid water even if there were a hundred times more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than what the mineral evidence in the rock tells us ...
For the past two decades, researchers have used spectrometers on Mars orbiters to search for carbonate that could have resulted from an early era of more abundant carbon dioxide. They have found far less than anticipated.
It's been a mystery why there hasn't been much carbonate seen from orbit, Bristow said. You could get out of the quandary by saying the carbonates may still be there, but we just can't see them from orbit because they're covered by dust, or buried, or we're not looking in the right place. The Curiosity results bring the paradox to a focus. This is the first time we've checked for carbonates on the ground in a rock we know formed from sediments deposited under water.
Curiosity rover sharpens paradox of ancient Mars | Phys.org
Mars Attacks geology and ... everything?
Could geomorphology, the explanation of geology everywhere else in our solar system and the universe based on our planet's environment and especially water erosion and features, be wrong? Why we find geological features on all other space bodies that are totally confusing and mostly reasonably unexplainable? Such as water erosion features on the asteroid Vesta?
Could Mars have suffered a massive planetary wide catastrophe, or a series of catastrophic events, as suggested by some comparative mythology investigators?
Which would help to explain its rock shattered look and the Valles Marinius, Martian meteorites still landing on planet Earth, Mars sand on our globe?
Transmutations – silicon on Mars
Transmutations of silicon into iron/hematite forms on the planet Mars by electromagnetic/plasma events in an Electric Universe?
The presence of iron oxide in several different forms indicates that something not taking place on any large scale today did take place at some time in the past. Most Mars research groups speculate that there was once a dense, oxygen-rich atmosphere that allowed for the “rusting” of iron in its crust to take place. Whatever the source, Mars has hematite dunes a kilometer high, giant trenches that go on for hundreds of kilometers with their bottoms covered in hematite ripples, and seas of hematite dust tens of meters deep swallowing craters a hundred kilometers in diameter.
It is unusual that dark hematite is so intimately bound up with white silicon-dioxide rock. Could there be a connection between silica and hematite on Mars? Could electric arcs transmute elements: reforming the atomic structure of silicon (with 28 particles in its nucleus) into that of iron (with 56)? Perhaps that connection could also explain the Moqui marbles with their iron oxide and silicon dioxide composition.
Others suggest that there were oceans of open water on the surface that helped to form the hematite nodules covering nearly a whole hemisphere (perhaps more). Whatever the source, Mars has hematite dunes a kilometer high, giant cracks that go on for hundreds of kilometers with their bottoms covered in hematite ripples, and seas of hematite dust tens of meters deep swallowing craters a hundred kilometers in diameter.
Elemental transmutation through the z-pinch effect is not considered in conventional theories, so there are few avenues of experimentation left open. Precipitation and chemical recombination appear to be the main arguments put forward by Mars research scientists, so their theories about its evolution are often inconsistent. Relying upon hypotheses that ignore electromagnetic forces will always produce erroneous conclusions.It is unusual that dark hematite is so intimately bound up with white silicon-dioxide rock. Could there be a connection between silica and hematite on Mars? Could the same electric arcs that are thought to have carved the Red Planet transmute elements: reforming the atomic structure of silicon (with 28 particles in its nucleus) into that of iron (with 56)?
Happy Anniversary | Thunderbolts TPOD
Mars soil and rocks - Calcium/Silicon versus Iron/Silicon
The compositions of SNC meteorites, as well as Viking soils and Mars Pathfinder soils, have higher iron/silicon ratios than terrestrial rocks.
Calcium/Silicon versus Iron/Silicon - APXS Composition Results | NASA
Mars Soil Composition
APXS analyses of Martian soils are compared with Viking soil analyses. Each element is normalized to silicon in this diagram. The yellow boxes representing Viking data include all analyses and their analytical uncertainties ... and a few significant differences from Viking analyses. Specifically, soils at the Pathfinder site generally have higher aluminum and magnesium, and lower iron, chlorine, and sulfur. Scooby Doo, which appears to be a sedimentary rock composed primarily of compacted soil, also exhibits a few chemical differences form the surrounding soils.
Martian Soil Composition - APXS Composition Results | NASA
Martain soils and rock - Sodium/Silicon versus Iron/Silicon
Shown here are the analyses of Yogi (A-7) and Barnacle Bill (A-3) on a plot of Na/Si vs. Fe/Mn. Na/Si is not a good indicator of different planetary bodies (and the APXS analyses of Na have a large error), but the Fe/Mn ratio is a diagnostic feature that separates Martian rocks from all other rocks. As can be seen, Yogi and Barnacle Bill are quite Martian.
Sodium/Silicon versus Iron/Silicon - APXS Composition Results | NASA
Peroxide reactions
An early in situ experiment to discover biota in Martian samples found an anomalous oxidation process that was attributed to peroxides in or on the soil. It still isn’t clear to this author whether this was due to vagaries of the analyzing instrument, an isolated non-reproducible incident, or solar-induced oxide enhancement of the Martian soil. It is, of course, well-known that ultraviolet radiation can dissociate otherwise well-behaved molecules into higher energy states to form such peroxide molecules.
I opt in favor of this for at least two reasons: Peroxide reactions, especially in the presence of activating ultraviolet light, would favor the conversion of hematite or the hydrated limonite into magnetite. Secondly, magnetite might be reduced in the presence of peroxide to maghemite, which itself can exist in a magnetic or nonmagnetic (hematite) state. This is because, as is well-known to almost every bench analyst who’s dirtied his or her hands as a wet-chemist, under certain conditions peroxides can act as either oxidizing or reducing agents. The exotic conditions on Mars certainly qualify for an unusual laboratory environment on a planetary scale.
Such peroxides on Mars would most probably come from the dissociation of the CO2 or sparse water vapor in the atmosphere. Moreover, the disturbance of the windstorms, abetted by the otherwise anomalous peroxide reduction of hematite to the ferrous state (FeO), perhaps might also—if accompanied by water from the poles—convert mineral iron compounds to the nonmagnetic greenish ferrous hydroxide or even to the darker ferric hydroxide, geothite.
The Sands of Mars | Thunderbolts TPOD