if it is a forest those trees would be huge.
take a comparison picture using google earth from the same distance see if thye look similar. i doubt it.

Some great pic's !!
Does NASA not have a sat in orbet of mars that could take some very up close pic's of just about any spot on Mars that could tell everyone once and for all what the heck is realy there ?
I for one am hopeing google with all its money can one day soon bring us google mars , or at the very least a google moon.

Any vegetation here is imaginary. White = snow and Gray = soil (including rocks, sand, gravel, etc.). It's just not that difficult!

Looks like sagebrush to me. I was skeptical until I looked at the source images on non-conspiracy websites. I can't imagine non-organic phenomenon showing up like this. Giant lichen colonies, perhaps?

If you like, I can list the biochemical reasons why this is simply not possible (since it is my job to know!) but I suspect you'd rather play in the land of make-believe than learn a little science. The best big thing insearching for life on Mars is Lab-on-a-chip technology to search for biomarkers (indicators of life that still has NOT been found there yet!). I don't think 6-figure grants and years of development would have been spent on this technology if we had PICTURES of multicellular organisms! Yeesh! Why don't we all start here: What to lichens and plants release into the atmosphere that is NOT present in the Martian atmosphere?

Well, earth plants, sure, Xtal. There was a long period of Earth's history when it was teaming with life but also oxygen-poor.

Another group on here is trying to pass rocks off as animals so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Geez, what would make you so mad if there were life on Mars?

Where's all that methane coming from, btw?

Too little energy is generated through anoxygenic photosynthesis. By default, this leaves us MICROORGANISMS! Chlorobium, otherwise known as green sulfur bacterium would be a good example. Most likely, however chemical constraints (pressure, temp, desiccation, etc.) would require reliance on a type of metabolism called chemoautotrophy. On Earth, microbes called extremophiles are clustered in a domain of life called Archaea (not the same as regular bacteria or "Eubacteria"). It is generally accepted that these are among the most ancient forms of cellular life on Earth today. Metabolic processes in this group can be very bizarre. Methanogens generate methane gas from simple hydrocarbons (i.e., methanol, ethanol), others live at very high/low pH, others still live at hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor where temperatures reach 130C or more. The most unusual is a polyextremophile called Deinococcus radiodurans. This bug surivived exposure to space outside the shuttle in orbit, makes a habit out of living in cooling tanks with spent rods at nuclear power plants and contains multiple copies of genes on circular DNA that stacks like a lifesaver to facilitate repair of broken fragments! This is true science and even more incredible than most realize! If you want to talk about life on Mars, how about discussing bugs that metabolize hydrogen and live deep beneath the Martian soil? They may not even HAVE DNA in their genomes! Think about it! According to the RNA world hypothesis, RNA was used before DNA and protein (performs the functions of both biomolecules to a less efficient degree & is still needed for many intermediate steps). A few groups are even working on other possible genetic systems and those are PNA (peptide backbone), TNA (threose backbone) and GNA (glycerol). Shall I outline some thermodynamic equations to demonstrate the differences between oxygenic and anoxygenic photosynthesis?

Image segments cropped by me for comparison.

If the "objects" in the top segment are in fact trees, the dark areas extending to the southwest would be shadows.

However, the "shadows" apparently are in the same alignment as the terrain grooves in the bottom segment, as well as the alignment of multiple "objects". The conclusion therefore is that the "shadows" are not shadows, but are part of the terrain. If they are part of the terrain, the "objects" must also be part of the terrain, and are not actually extending up from the surface.

This suggests to me that these formations are the result of a broken impact. Perhaps minerals deposited on the surface.

They dont need OXYGEN... why would they? Because plants on Earth dont need oxygen either. Nope, they use CO2 here. And besides, Mars is a completely different friggin planet. Why should we expect life to behave the same way over there?

Dont let your mind limit you.

[edit on 8-4-2007 by damajikninja]

Some of those images I would make out to be shadows of rock formations, however I am a bit intrigued by the rest. I live around plenty of sage brush, but that looks a bit larger than the usual sage brush around here, although I've seen them grow up to 10 feet wide and 6 feet tall on occassion. If it were a lifeform it wouldn't be a plant like that on earth. I don't want to fuel the radical idea of organic life existing on Mars right now though, there must be another explaination to determine this. Has there been any attempts by NASA or other scientific organizations to explain these odd formations in these photographs?

Interesting...
Yep...
Very interesting...

Not being an expert in, well, much of anything, I want to pose a question.

Is it possible, that it is perhaps the crystallization (or petrification, if you will) of something that was organic at one time?

Would that be possible?

Was this crazy and brilliant and somewhat on eccentric side - this Percival LOWELL in something with his theory of vegetation on Mars ( and channels...remember and strange artificially looking glass 'tubes' and now - this new images of 'holes' on Mars).

Strange is the fact that he, from his Observatory in flagstaff (Arizona), during his 8 last years of life, was in search for "planet x" - and was convinced there is a planet beyond Neptune - and years after ('30) Pluto was found.



Seriously...dunno - 'forest' or not - this imaged resemble some kind of 'life'. It would be very helpful if we can determine what the sun angle was in time images were taken - that way would be easy to measure the height of this 'trees !?



Even Arthur CLARkE think it is some kind of vegetation :

Speaking from his home in Sri Lanka, Clarke informed the crowd that the images he'd downloaded from NASA's Web site showed something growing on the planet's surface. "I'm quite serious when I say I have a really good look at these new Mars images," Clarke said. "Something is actually moving and changing with the seasons that suggests, at least, vegetation."

Clearly, Clarke is no wild eccentric; he invented the concept of satellite broadcasting and was knighted by the Queen of England. What caught his eye is a genuine enigma: a forest of large round blobs with branchlike structures that visibly expand and shrink over the seasons, which Clarke said looked like "banyan trees."

Nice pictures! Awesome thread!

There is no proof that "multicellular organisms" need oxygen until Humans have explored every possible planet, and that would take an eternity.

So, let's have fun, carry on, and think large!

WATS btw. Nice post blue bird!