Life on Mars? No...

I figured, since just yesterday I got through a lecture with Wendy Calvin, a researcher on the Mars Rover teams and a professor at my University (score) anyways...and such subjects came up.

I think her response was what really establishes the difference between oh say people here who claim they have "Found a fossile!" or as in one incident...someone claiming a picture was sure proof of a lake.

Looks like a lake?

Think again...the "blue-berries" in the photo is a sure indicator that this is the Opportunity rover and that this picture is probably a foot or half a foot across...

What Wendy laid out so plainly, is that at most the researchers hope to find evidence of organic compounds, not even self-replicating and perpetuating organic compounds (the earliest forms of life) but just simply organic compounds, and they've so far found none.

When I talked with her I asked her a question and she agreed fully meaning my assumptions were correct.

Mars is little more than our own Moon, its geologic features are very similar, and its geologic past is very similar. The only difference is Mars was large enough to capture gasses and enough water to give it evidence of a hydrological history some 3 billion years ago.

Nothing significant, but enough that some scientists do hope that just maybe, a bacterium formed...

But as for today, nothing, for the past 3 billion years Mars has been and might as well be accepted as being as dead as the Moon.

The atmosphere it does have, is enough to kick up dust to create vast dust storms, and enough to waft very light traces of frozen moisture, but it can not even move the bells they had placed on the rovers as a test to see how much actual power is gotten from the wind on mars. (I'm not sure if those are literal bells or some kind of nick-name for a more complicated instrument.)

So while there's obvious evidence of wind erosion, it is very minimal and VERY old. On earth a sand storm can eat the flesh off your bones.

On Mars...you'd just want to avoid getting it in your eyes and lungs. But it couldn't even move your clothes.

Anyways, this post is mainly to bring level heads back to earth so to say...Mars is dead, if it had life it is chemical reactions, not antelopes and ancient civilizations.

There could be no more civilization on Mars then there could be on the Moon, after all, aside from a very tiny atmosphere both worlds are the same...most importantly both lack a magnetosphere for protection.

Oh I did manage to ask Dr. Wendy Calvin if there is a serious consideration that the Hellas Basin and Tharsis Bulge have a relationship, and there is. So without the event of a massive meteorite impact, there'd probably not even be any significant volcanoes that we find in the Tharsis Bulge.

Also if you think volcanism makes Mars special...it doesn't, again even the Moon had volcanism early in its life.

If you're still seeing "ancient cities" and "faces" on Mars, I suggest you take a remote sensing class and learn what you're really seeing.

Oh one last thing, so none of you are confused and think, "Valles Marineris is huge though, so there had to be a lot of water at one point?!"

Wrong.

Valles Marineris is improperly called a "canyon" it is really a "rift valley". Earth has them where plates pull apart, example is the great rift valley in Africa where the Horn is, that runs from the dead sea down through the Gulf of Aqaba through the Red Sea then across the horn of africa.

In Mars's case however, it was not caused by tectonics but by crustal stress caused by the activities in the Tharsis region, and it is suppected it did release traped underground water which is why there is small evidence of some water erosions at the east end of the rift. But again, nothing too shockingly big.

Not in the sense you people hoping for ancient Martian Civilization would be expecting.

Obviously hydrologic activity on Mars is a big deal even if it is incredibly miniscule because it is the only other inner planet that shows any such activity besides Earth.

Oh well, feel free to try and debate this post, I'm always up for a good debate.