Unfortunately we only have NASA's word that things are like they are. I dont have much experience in science subjects, but I can look at the photos we are supplied with and see what I would see when I look at a photo of Earth. This is the only world I have experienced in this lifetime so that is all I have to base my judgements on. That and common sense too.

There are people on here who can see what I see, but there are also people like you guys who have learned that according to what you have been taught, these things cannot exist.

I have said that I could be wrong due to my interpretation of the image. We all see different things and just like these 3D images that were popular a few years ago, some people can see things which other people cannot. Apart from the visual side of things, there is also the accepted science view of things.

All I can say is that I have seen probably hundreds and possibly thousands of NASA, JAXA and ESA photos which I consider to be poor quality - even for 1.3M pixel phone camera shots and I do not expect NASA to be spending their/our money on mass-produced phone camera chips. If scientists will be using the same images for science, then I expect they will be taking some high quality pictures of these foreign worlds. This is what my common sense says. What it all boils down to is that I just dont believe that much science can be done looking at those released photos.

If your livelihood and your families continued income required you to swallow the mainstream understanding, then you would probably want to do that for those you love. There are a lot of people working on secret projects and how often do we hear about them..... not often.

Not a big deal, but this thread is attracting a fair amount of attention too. C'mon boys work harder. Maybe you want to call me an attention whore? Try that one next. :-) I have already said that it is possible that I am wrong and it is not water or liquid, so you really dont need to try so hard, but it is just not dying is it..

I'm on the fence leaning towards not-water on this one. But the coloration of these rocks seems interesting...coincidence?

Originally posted by TinkererJim
I'm on the fence leaning towards not-water on this one. But the coloration of these rocks seems interesting...coincidence?

edit on 20-12-2012 by TinkererJim because: (no reason given)

If people cannot see water in this picture (regardless of it being real or not) then we need to call an opthamologist for a second opinion.

Phage, I linked to these photos a few pages ago and no they dont. They still show what I see as water. There IS shadow of rocks there but there is also reflection (on the water) as well.

The rocks half a different colour should convince you that this is indeed water. Why would that be - in your explanation?

Just a difference in colour of the rock surface I guess , but that is not taking other linked evidence such as reflections and the fact that you can see more detail in the shadow area NOT less (as you can when looking at reflection/shadow on water). On the other hand our argument for water is not taking all the science and topographical evidence into account either.

Originally posted by qmantoo
Phage, I linked to these photos a few pages ago and no they dont. They still show what I see as water. There IS shadow of rocks there but there is also reflection (on the water) as well.

The rocks half a different colour should convince you that this is indeed water. Why would that be - in your explanation?

Just a difference in colour of the rock surface I guess , but that is not taking other linked evidence such as reflections and the fact that you can see more detail in the shadow area NOT less (as you can when looking at reflection/shadow on water). On the other hand our argument for water is not taking all the science and topographical evidence into account either.

No it doesn't.

However, I can give you this about those 2 toned rocks: it's possible that they are like that because of standing water in the past: IE a water line. But from a very, very long time ago.

No it doesn't.
However, I can give you this about those 2 toned rocks: it's possible that they are like that because of standing water in the past: IE a water line. But from a very, very long time ago.

This water... how many centuries or thousands of years ago was it supposed to be there?

In the meantime, what about this weathering which is supposed to be going on? Dont you think these rocks would have suffered weathering to their outside surfaces? They are pretty exposed there and there is all that wind-blown sand mentioned by people on this thread previously.

No, it is a water level mark showing in that image because weathering would have removed it (or at least made it the same colour as the other part of the rock) over all this time.

Science cannot argue for weathering and then when it does not suit the situation say "Oh well there is no appreciable atmosphere or wind on Mars so weathering does not happen on this rock."

My common sense says there is an inconsistency there somewhere.

There is wind, and the dust on Mars does get blown around. It's a very fine dust in many cases that has a consistency of flour (but that's not the only thing there). That thin dust is picked up by that thin atmosphere and it does get blown around and it can help weather rocks., but it takes a lot longer now than it used to.

It's not thousands of years. We are talking about billions of years, where things changed slowly over time during that time. Mars had a much thicker atmosphere, because it had a strong magnetic field like the Earth. But over time, the field that helps protect the Earth from not just cosmic rays, but also the solar wind from the sun helped slowly strip away the atmosphere on Mars:

Thanks for the explanation.

However, quite a few people on here say that water has existed in the past. So what are we talking about as 'past' here. Is that when the atmosphere was thicker when water did not sublimate? If so then these rocks with the water mark on them have had billions of years to weather.

Does that sound reasonable to you - at the start of this time, the atmosphere was NOT thin, but getting thinner over the timescale, so weathering after the water dried up would have been fairly severe, compared to what you are saying it is today.

You know, there are statements made about atmosphere and weathering and wind and dust etc , but they dont seem to take into account the small details like this, and the fact that there is no piles of blueberries(very small & very lightweight) and not many sand drifts behind rocks where you would expect the wind (over billions of years) to have blown the sand into small sheltered areas.

Doesn't this and other 'small details' make you question the validity of the statements made about the atmosphere on Mars?

Originally posted by TinkererJim
I'm on the fence leaning towards not-water on this one. But the coloration of these rocks seems interesting...coincidence?

edit on 20-12-2012 by TinkererJim because: (no reason given)

What? a simple pair of banded sedentary rocks

Alot of rocks are banded you know, and we know mars had water once and this area would have had some looking at it. It isnt a half wet and half dry rock...

Your seeing something and assigning it some other meaning.

Maybe its a piece of fossilized martian candy corn?

Edit:- looking at it again, its not even that, its just the brighter upper surface to a prism shaped piece of rock for the left one and the same deal for a more irregular piece of rock or dirt for the right one.

You also need to take into account that many of these rocks get covered up and stay that way for very long periods as dust is shifted around on Mars by dust storms. It's quite possible that many of them stay looking the way they do as they remain covered up for very long periods, only to be exposed later.

Where is the photographic evidence for mass movement of sand? I have seen 'sand dunes' from space and I have seen 'sand dunes' on flat areas, but I suspect (what do I know?) they are water-produced sand banks since I cannot find any appreciable build-up of sand around rocks which have been subject to prevailing winds for millenia.

We see 'dust storms' but no evidence in the pictures of this large quantity of sand being dumped anywhere.

As I said before, I would really appreciate it if someone could explain why the small blueberries, which are often 10mm or less, are scattered all over the place and not all bunched up in the lee of some rocks.

This is what I would expect to see if there was any appreciable wind on Mars.

Thank you for all your explanations. I am understanding more as we go along.

There are plenty of photos out there of martial rocks half buried in the dust. Take a look at many of Spirit and Opportunity's photos too.

...and I have looked at many of them. However, I do not see thousands of years of dust/sand build-up behind rocks. I also do not see any half-buried rocks. Over thousands or millions of years, I would expect there to be NO sharp edges to rocks due to even the weakest wind blowing the smallest particles around. Are you actually telling me that this weak wind cannot even blow 5 or 10mm blueberries into piles? I see some small piles of dust and sand, and that makes me thing there is some wind movement. As I said before, these blueberries are tiny and I would expect some movement of them by this weak wind.

The MER rovers get dust deposited on their lenses so there IS some dust and sand being blown about and we were given the sandstorms as the reason why there is not any longterm buildup on the solar panels.

C'mon, you cannot have it both ways - both a wind strong enough to blow clean the solar panels on the MERs and a wind weak enough to not cause weathering over millions of years.

Now... if this wind is that weak it would probably have deposited fine dust and sand over all of the surface of Mars not just the areas in the lee of rocks. Again, I dont see it.

The Martian atmosphere is supposed to be red because there is so much red dust in it. Even the smallest particles come down to land sometimes and over millions of years there will be a blanket of dust - or so I would have thought. Rather like a flour mill or paper mill, a fine blanket of dust will accumulate however thin the atmosphere is and however weak the wind is.

Please show me what you consider thousands or millions of years of thin Martian atmospherically-blown dust or sand hiding behind rocks. Trust me, I have looked at thousands of MER pictures, and this is one thing which does not stand out in them. I can see little build-ups of perhaps a few inches, but nothing like we have here (and yes, even with the weak winds I would expect smaller particles of dust or sand to be blown about and lifted into the air.)

Feel the difference? One is heavier and much more abrasive than the other. Fill a sand blaster with sand and watch it peel away the paint on a metal surface in seconds. The (if you want to ruin the machine) fill it with flour and try again and see what happens. You're going to get very bored waiting for that paint to come off. It will happen, but it's going to take a very long time.

This suggests that you have no concept of just how long thousands and millions of years are. They ARE a very long time, so to suggest that flour or anything for that matter will not cause erosion over these kind of time periods is simply incorrect.

The winds do move the dust around, and we do see that on a massive scale when dust storms happen on Mars and are seen by our probes and even here on Earth with a good telescope.

And where is the evidence of these massive amounts of dust. We see images of dust storms perhaps, but no on-the-ground dumping of dust and sand.

What we don't have is something sitting there taking pictures of the same spot, year, after year, after year, after year, etc, etc, etc.

Firstly we have the MERs which were/are moving around slowly for at least 6 years. They have taken numerous images which include their solar panels. We also have the spacecraft which have taken pictures of the same place at different times. So, yes we do.

There is other weathering going on too besides wind. That very water that we are arguing about. It's in the air, and when the temps drop down enough, it will cover things with frost There are plenty of pictures of that.
When that frost forms, it can do it in the smallest cracks. Frost is still ice, and can expand, exerting force inside that crack making it wider. It's a very, very slow process, but it does happen.

So yes, I can have it both ways, because there are several forces at work here, and 4.5 billion years of time for them to have worked on things there.

BUT we are talking and arguing about wind and water not ice. This ice has nothing to do with wind and water being present in quantities and densities which will give rise to the evidence I am looking for and not finding, and which you say exists on Mars.

Oh, and as for the "blue berries": you mentioned their diameter.......that's good. Because now you need to consider the diameter of a single dust particle, their density too.

And your point is ... what? How does this answer the question I asked? Answer - it does not. We are not talking about one dust particle pushing on one blueberry, we are talking about many many dust particles in a thin atmosphere pushing on many blueberries.

You still have not explained how these tiny blueberries are NOT pushed around in the wind. The same wind that picks up red dust particles and carries them thousands of miles in the atmosphere. THAT wind.

You really need to start answering the points I make rather than answering points which you you think gives weight to your arguments. Maybe you are just hoping that if we go around and around long enough this thread will die. I think it has died already since I have made several good arguments against there being no appreciable wind and you do not seem to have answered them with pictorial evidence like I asked.

I see no evidence to assume that the what is in those OP images is dust carried and dumped there by the wind.

Didnt looked like liquid sorry OP.. more like fine sand to me.. btw you mean 'water' as in H2O ? or liquid form of something ?

as other people said, if there is liquid in mars so what ? there are other bodies that have liquids on them.. didnt prove anything imho