Sea Nodules or just Martian Rocks??

Look carefully at this picture. Enlarge it of course!

You will notice these perfectly round protrusions on the rocks, some of the spherical attachments even cast shadows on the host rock. Could this perhaps be even more proof that there was and perhaps still could be some sort of life on Mars?

My only correlation similiar to something on earth would be a barnacle type creature.

Think of underwater coral and rocks, those little tiny things like snails which stick themselves to rocks and the bottoms of boat.

marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...

and an even closer view

marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...

What do you think?



[Edited on 2-8-2004 by worldwatcher]

The ground around them looks like mud too

I think it sounds reasonable. Perhaps they're the Mars equivalent of slime mold or fungus; some very rudimentary life form, and perhaps food for the 'rabbit' critter.

Perhaps the reason NASA hasn't commented on the 'rabbit' object yet is because they suspect these are all lifeforms, but before they make a public statement to that effect they must have approval by the White House or NSA.

That would explain why nobody from NASA answers email queries about it.

[Edited on 8-2-2004 by Condorcet]

I just wish we could see the picture in true color, I think that would help answer alot of questions.

looks like wind erosion to me

It occurred to me, Maybe there are water sources buried under the soil? perhaps that would explain why the soil is sort of muddy?


Slippery nature of crater driving

Wallace told SPACE.com that driving Opportunity on the side of the crater wall -- where the rock outcrop can be meticulously analyzed -- will be "somewhat challenging."

The slippery nature of up hill and down hill roving, as well as moving laterally across crater wall slopes is to be carefully monitored.
www.space.com...

Another Close Up image

www.space.com...'s%20Microscopic%20Imager%20has%20fou nd%20more%20evidence%20for%20intriguing%20small%20spherical%20objects%20within%20the%20crater%20at%20Meridiani%20Planum.%20Credit:%20NASA/JPL/Cornell/ USGS

Originally posted by KrazyIvan
looks like wind erosion to me

thanks for your opinion but do you think wind erosion can leave almost perfect spheres some which look attached to the main rock ?

I'll have to read up wind erosion effects.

Well...

Not really sure about life, those look similar to accretionary lapilli, these are formed by wet ash from volcanos...

volcanoes.usgs.gov...

Accretionary lapilli are a common phenomena in phreatomagmatic eruptions and form in a tubulent volcanic wet ash plume (Moore & Peck, 1962). Growths is controlled by collisions of liquid coated solid or molten particles and binding as a result of surface tension forces (Gilbert & Lane, 1994, Schumacher & Schminke, 1995). By this mechanisms more and more material gets concentrically accreted out of the lapilli environment. Impact related accretionary lapilli have been found in the fall-back suevite within the N�rdlinger Ries crater (Graup, 1981) and in the upper Devonian Alamo breccia, south central Nevada (Warme et al., 2002).

Accretiona ry lapilli

They also look like deep sea nodules.

www.digistar.mb.ca...

Which suggests a previous ocean on Mars.

thanks yoda, that's a pretty good explanation, it does look like it one of the pictures but not in the others, what about it "protruding" from the main rock?

I'm still not 100% convinced.

Talking about the second link in the first post ?

Looking for a link but I do remember reading about these in National Geographic, and they were due to water erosion...

darklanser thanks

that is exactly what I had in mind, but I didn't know it was called deep sea nodules, the only thing I could think of was barnacle.

Some of the spheres appear to be halved and quartered in the Sol 15 pictures.

marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...

Some spheres appear to be consolidated into the rock outcropping material.
marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...

Just rocks

yep I am thinking they are rocks now, but rocks that would have been found under water. and where there is water, there would have been life.

and what about the theory of water being underground? any thoughts on that?

Here is a RGB composite portion created with L4 L5 L6 filters.

No adjustments.

You can see that they are not reflective in the same spectrums as the surroundings.

More composites soon....

Could the outcropping be limestone or travertine? We'd have a clue if we knew the photos were accurate color.

In ArchAngel's photo the rocks look like limestone.

[Edited on 8-2-2004 by Condorcet]

We cannot create accurate color without other data that will not be published for months, or maybe never.

The pic above is NOT balanced color. It is a method of showing that the objects reflect light differently in different frequencies.

Here it is with L2 L5 L7



[Edited on 8-2-2004 by ArchAngel]

Well...

Don't know about "accurate color" , but this thread is interesting, because the nodules could have been formed on land, or under water. From what I understand, here on Earth they are formed from "wet ash" from volcanic activity ( which would mean water in the atmosphere, or volcanic activity in an ocean, or sea ), which to me, Mars at one time had water and heat ( from the volcanic activity ) two prerequisites for live ( at least from what I understand what caused life on Earth ), the third would be food...

Wander what the life would have had for food...

thanks archangel for the color composite. It especially looks strange when you notice the little spheres attached to the main rocks. Again I don't know if there is another explanation for how they are on the rock, but they once again remind me of barnacles and how they attach themselves to rocks and then feed when the tide comes in.....perhaps this entire area in which opportunity is exploring was once completely under water and these are the fossilized forms of some very crude basic form of underwater life....

It especially looks strange when you notice the little spheres attached to the main rocks.

There is another answer, but if it is what I think that would mean Mars had standing water for a long time..




The Pearlsian Gulf

This room is called the Pearlsian Gulf because of all the "cave pearls" located in the pools of water. These formations are called cave pearls for a good reason. Not only because they look like pearls, but because they were created in much the same way oysters create real pearls. Oysters deposit a mucus-like substance around a grain of sand that gets into their shell, which hardens into a layer of pearl. Over time, these hardened layers build up to form a pearl.

In the case of the cave pearls, as water dripped from the ceiling and splashed into a puddle, tiny amounts of calcium dissolved in the puddle water slowly built up around small fragments of rock. Over a long period of time, the accumulated layers of calcium created these smooth, round pearls.

SOURCE