Weird skull like thing near Opportunity

okay if it is that small and it is in the tracks that the rover left, perhaps then it might indeed be a martian snail of some sort?????

Originally posted by worldwatcher
okay if it is that small and it is in the tracks that the rover left, perhaps then it might indeed be a martian snail of some sort?????

I doubt it's alive, or anything recently alive. And since Mars doesn't have an Oxygne atmosphere, the odds of a creature evolving into a snail there is extremely low.

I doubt we're going to see Martian Fauna running across the plains. If there's no plants, then there's no dynamic atmosphere (CO2->O2), which means that breathing animals are all going to suffocate eventually.

but it's martian!!!! it probably doesn't need to breathe in the same sense that we do?

Originally posted by Esoterica
I doubt we're going to see Martian Fauna running across the plains. If there's no plants, then there's no dynamic atmosphere (CO2->O2), which means that breathing animals are all going to suffocate eventually.

Who said they had to breathe O2?

www-astronomy.mps.ohio-state.edu...
Why Earth has ozone layer
Early life breathes in CO2, breathes out O2 (like plants do today)

Photosynthesis converts CO2 to O2, more CO2 tied up in shells of dead ocean animals as life grows complex

2 billion years ago:

detectable amounts of O2 in atmosphere, makes ozone layer, blocks UV light from Sun

Ozone layer allows ocean life to colonize land

O2 abundance (amount) rises, CO2 abundance drops

These strange objects must be dendrites of some kind. My guess is they coud be salts of some kind. I'm no geologist, but I can't think of any other explanation.

This still doesn't solve the mystery of the strange object on top of the air-bag marks in my picture above.


[Edited on 3-2-2004 by Zzub]

but it's martian!!!! it probably doesn't need to breathe in the same sense that we do?

Well, it needs to beathe something. That fact that there isn't a dynamic usage of air on the planet means that anything alive there would suffocate.

Originally posted by NetStorm

Who said they had to breathe O2?

www-astronomy.mps.ohio-state.edu...
Why Earth has ozone layer
Early life breathes in CO2, breathes out O2 (like plants do today)

Photosynthesis converts CO2 to O2, more CO2 tied up in shells of dead ocean animals as life grows complex

2 billion years ago:

detectable amounts of O2 in atmosphere, makes ozone layer, blocks UV light from Sun

Ozone layer allows ocean life to colonize land

O2 abundance (amount) rises, CO2 abundance drops

Yeah...which is exactly what I said...you need life to be keeping the atmosphere in motion.

why does the "thing" even need to breathe?

think out of the box people...if it is martian, it is alien, who ever said aliens need to breathe? perhaps life elsewhere doesn't evolve the same way life on earth does?

i'm just playing devil's advocate here, I have no clue what the "thing" is and if it is alive or dead, just find it strange how many anomalies are showing up and also that thing seemed to have moved.

Originally posted by worldwatcher
why does the "thing" even need to breathe?

think out of the box people...if it is martian, it is alien, who ever said aliens need to breathe? perhaps life elsewhere doesn't evolve the same way life on earth does?

i'm just playing devil's advocate here, I have no clue what the "thing" is and if it is alive or dead, just find it strange how many anomalies are showing up and also that thing seemed to have moved.

Well, all life needs to bring is material and expel material. Unless it's managed to eat dirt, it's going to need air

i agree worldwatcher, we need to think out of the box when thinking about alien life

Originally posted by ljbako
i agree worldwatcher, we need to think out of the box when thinking about alien life

Well, the other problem is, that something that size isn't going to have evolved all by itself. We aren't going to find just one snail on Mars. There needs to be some other life (most likely bacterial, maybe algae or fungus), there'd probably be plant life. I'm just skeptical we'd be finding just one little snail in a great expanse of desert, and absolutley nothing anywhere else.

Originally posted by Esoterica
[
Well, all life needs to bring is material and expel material. Unless it's managed to eat dirt, it's going to need air

SOo it could be a sand crab type creature that eats dirt, as someone else had suggested

but doesnt' Mars have dust storms? Isn't that some type of "air" that is creating and moving these dust storms? perhaps that "thingy" does "breathe" the martian atmosphere???????

Originally posted by Esoterica
Well, the other problem is, that something that size isn't going to have evolved all by itself. We aren't going to find just one snail on Mars. There needs to be some other life (most likely bacterial, maybe algae or fungus), there'd probably be plant life. I'm just skeptical we'd be finding just one little snail in a great expanse of desert, and absolutley nothing anywhere else.

hmmm, seems to me, there is green algae or something like that on mars the mars express sent back these really interesting pics, you should take a look, it is possible.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Wow those 3 objects!

This thread deserves a bump for Zzub's excellent analysis and photo montage.

Maybe these critters crawl out of the ground at night

[Edited on 3-2-2004 by Condorcet]

i forgot to mention zzub, doesn't that object you highlighted in the lower left look like a toy plane? The other one on the trail totally baffles me though.

This "thing" just like a sand crab lives in underneath the sand or in little dirt borrows like spiders. It breaths whatever the atmospheric mix is on mars. There is oxygen there by the way, just not as dense as Earth.

By the way the air you breath is far from 90 or even 80% its more like 50 or 60% O2 and then you throw in CO2, Ni and a whole host of other crap

So this thing must eat something, dirt, rocks, other bugs, some type of plant life WTF I have no idea. Maybe there is some type of subterranean worms that it eats

so what does nasa plan to do now? go over there and see what they r?

Originally posted by worldwatcher

Originally posted by Esoterica
[
Well, all life needs to bring is material and expel material. Unless it's managed to eat dirt, it's going to need air

SOo it could be a sand crab type creature that eats dirt, as someone else had suggested

but doesnt' Mars have dust storms? Isn't that some type of "air" that is creating and moving these dust storms? perhaps that "thingy" does "breathe" the martian atmosphere???????

I didn't mean dynamic as in moving, I meant dynamic as in gases being exchanged.

hmmm, seems to me, there is green algae or something like that on mars the mars express sent back these really interesting pics, you should take a look, it is possible.

While I'd like to believe they're algae, I get the feeling that NASA's explanation is right. Good point, though.

in regards to what NASA plans on doing, check out where OP's robot arm is trying to take a microscopic picture.

ITS the spot where the object was, I bet they are looking for residue or other things associated with life, droppings, debris, tunnels who knows but the link that says rover pictures and has a view of the arm is about the spot where the thing was in the pan shot of SOL 2

Send your montage of the panorama and 3 close-ups to the Rense website. The more attention we draw to this phenomena the less likely NASA will be to ignore or neglect it.

[email protected]

Like many of you have said...it's martain...so it could be a great many things. Remember that the light and the atmosphere is differen't there..it will decieve you. It very well looks like something that reminds us of things we see here on earth. I believe we are not alone here on earth and away so don't get me wrong. Do I believe there was once life on mars and still is...yes. But I don't believe it's going to be this easy and quick. Life adapts to live and changes to meet the changes around it. But who knows maybe we lucked out.