Possible new classification opportunity for concretion spherules (blueberries) on Mars.

reply to post by qmantoo


Well, best you start writing your paper then.

A quick google scholar search for "mars hematite" returns over 7500 articles on the subject.

At least you could read some of them, rather than using dumbed down sources for information?

What??? dont you read? I have said that I accept that there ARE rocks which contain concretions.

Anyway, here is an image of blueberries with 'dents' in them rather as if they came off of a 'stalk' so please have a look and now tell me if this does not make the case stronger. If they were some kind of fruiting body I would expect there to be new completely spherical fresh ones and older ones which were dried and shrivelled and this is what we see in the images. We also see the soil which is often made up of spores which have been distributed out from these spherules. Not always, but sometimes - OK?



Shall we try to argue whether this makes any sense at all, rather than having a go at me? We are all supposing that there may have been life on Mars in the past and now you are all agruing that it cannot be when at least some evidence points to the fact that it is. Yes, I could be wrong, but so could you too.

I have to emphrasise that I am NOT saying there are absolutely no concretions. There obviously are, since we have images of them too. but, lets discus the topic which is this 'stalk' like thing and is it a stalk.

Here is an idea brought up by Mark Anthony on another forum website which might offer us a similar suggestion.

mark anthony
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I've been looking into the possibility that these 'blueberries' are similar to the ancient plant 'Pachytheca' which are similar in shapes and sizes to the objects we see in the Mars images.

Pachytheca - (Late Silurian to Early Devonian) Algae consisting of single spherical body 1.5-7 mm diameter composed of an inner and outer zone. The inner zone consists of a nucleus with multicellular filaments oriented randomly, but in the outer zone are radially oriented. For a long time Pachytheca was thought to be part of a bigger plant, but nowadays it is rather firmly believed to have been a complete organism.



There doesn't seem to be much about them online yet here is an interesting site that shows a few good examples of them.

I have to concerns with this topic:

1. Morphology, on its own, isn't enough to destinguish organisms from natural formations. Other forms of study are required, such as chemical analysis. This is the reason why morphological evidence of microbes in meteorites hasn't been accepted by the wider scientific community.

2. How could fungi possibly survive in the current conditions on Mars? That's utterly dry and freezing (down to below -100 C) environment with practically no oxygen and hardly any atmosphere we're talking about. I suppose microorganisms could exist in some deep caves or underground lakes, but I can't imagine fungus growing on the surface.

As an aside, global fungus growth might be visible on satellite images from season to season. Got any evidence of that?

We are discussing the image of what looks like a stalk of a fungus which appears in the first post. It is fairly obviously not a piece of rock, so - if it is not a piece of rock on a lifeless planet, what is it?

Images of rilles on the Moon do not stop scientists comparing these structures with various things on earth such as collapsed lava tubes. What makes this comparison to a fungus stalk any different to what they have done?

There are plenty of species which live in very adverse conditions on Earth and so who knows what may find it possible to live on Mars. We have only one or two sources for all our knowledge about Mars at the moment and the release of information is tightly controlled. By limiting your thinking to your beliefs that the conditions on Earth must be the same basis for life on other planets is totally wrong and blinkered. Beings who come to this part of the galaxy could take on any form and be made of anything as well as have senses and abilities which we can only dream about.

As an aside, global fungus growth might be visible on satellite images from season to season. Got any evidence of that?

Any discussion on that would take this topic down another route so if you wist to start another thread please do.

We are discussing the structure in the image which looks like a stalk and so far, no-one has explained it as possibly being anything else.

Originally posted by qmantoo
Knowing what I now know(!) about the wind and the total lack of wind, and water erosion, it seems the only erosion worth much is radiation bombardment erosion.

Total lack of wind? Then I guess all those sandstorms you can even see from Earth must be some kind of weird illusion.

Originally posted by qmantoo
We are discussing the image of what looks like a stalk of a fungus which appears in the first post. It is fairly obviously not a piece of rock, so - if it is not a piece of rock on a lifeless planet, what is it?

Hang on a second. Do you not see a problem with your statement above?

"of what LOOKS LIKE a stalk of a fungus"

Important to note that things can look like other things, but not be those things. I know you are well aware that we could post literally hundreds of pages of pictures of rocks, trees, bodies of water, even toast for goodness sakes, that can LOOK like something that they are not.

"obviously not a piece of rock"

That's an absolute statement. You are saying that it's not a rock. From your posts, that is very obvious that you feel that way. However, you can't say that with 100% certainty simply by looking at a picture of it.

"IF it is not a piece of rock on a lifeless planet, what is it?"

So by your logic it MUST be something else, because it CAN NOT BE a rock.

Why can it not be a rock? I posted earlier that just a photograph of something like this is not going to prove it one way or another. Yet some how with you: IT MUST NOT BE A ROCK. Again: why not?

Originally posted by qmantoo
Images of rilles on the Moon do not stop scientists comparing these structures with various things on earth such as collapsed lava tubes. What makes this comparison to a fungus stalk any different to what they have done?

Because Rilles are a geological process. While there is still debate on how they formed (and some of them are mind blowing when you look at them on the moon), it is still a geological feature that is rock.

Geologists have shown that mineral formation can happen in a completely natural way to form things that can be mistaken for fossilized microbial life simply by looking at it. No scientist is going to stick out their neck and announce that something that LOOKS like a microrganism MUST be one. Not after what happened with ALH84001. Not without extensive tests and something to help confirm it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Thing about it: do you think a scientist or their team want to be remembered as the ones to finally really discover life on another planet (even past life)? Sure they do.
What they do not want to do is to be remembered as the person or group who were fooled and made a bad announcement. Makes it kind of hard to believe anything they say after that.

Originally posted by qmantoo
There are plenty of species which live in very adverse conditions on Earth and so who knows what may find it possible to live on Mars. We have only one or two sources for all our knowledge about Mars at the moment and the release of information is tightly controlled. By limiting your thinking to your beliefs that the conditions on Earth must be the same basis for life on other planets is totally wrong and blinkered. Beings who come to this part of the galaxy could take on any form and be made of anything as well as have senses and abilities which we can only dream about.

You are correct on this. And because we may not be able to recognize life that is not "earth like", will make it far harder to find it using only camera picture.

It is NOT wrong to think that "earth like" life could possibly exist elsewhere, and would be the easiest for us to spot. All life on Earth is made from the most common elements in the universe. Liquid water has proven time and time again to be one of the best mediums for life to mix. We have a HUGE amount of knowledge about "earth like" life, and will therefor be the easiest to spot first.

We have exactly ZERO experience with non-earth like life None. No examples to go by. No template to search for, and as you pointed out, may be only what we can dream about for now.

By insisting that life on other planets will NOT be like on Earth is just as limited thinking. Why would there NOT be "earth like" life on other planets if everything is there for it? Both in the past and the present?

We're looking for that possible past life on Mars, because the conditions back then meet what we know about Earth.

How in the world are we going to look for present martian life that is completely alien to Earth and based on something else using only a camera on a rover? You can't say that it MUST be because it LOOKS like something. Other requirements must be met, else it is simply just speculation.

For example: I hand you a rock. You look at it and it looks like wood. You can't say it used to be wood. You have to research it. Which you do and find out I picked it up at the petrified forest, so yes! It's fossilized wood.
Or, your research may find I picked it up from somewhere else and it's just a rock that looks like petrified wood.

Erik:
As far as I am concerned, you are trying to impose a science-like method on something which will never be abale to be proved until we have a more hands-on approach. Currently, you and others are discussing everything but the elephant which is that thing in the corner of the first linked image. No-one knows what it is. Thats correct, but we can say that it has many atrtributes of a fungus stalk and more similarities to that than a normal roundish rock on Mars.

Words. You are are arguing about the words I use which for me is not important. What is important is whether we can establish this thing as something else or establish it as most likely a fungus stalk.

It is obviouis that no-one has any experience in non-earth like life and so it is useless to mention it and it does not add to any part of the discussion about what this strange shape is.

I dont really care what a scientist needs to feel loved by his fellow science community since I am not a scientist. However, I do know that a scientist should be open to new ideas and new hypotheses and should investigate these too. Currently I see no-one on here doing that and all I see is folks trying to deny and attack. I think a little more maturity would not go amiss.

So, what I would like is for people to stick to the subject and together we can try to establish what this strange structure is and what it may possibly be.

Blueshift:

Total lack of wind? Then I guess all those sandstorms you can even see from Earth must be some kind of weird illusion.

So argue for it. I wish it were true but I keep getting conflicting stories from different people So back on track now eh?

reply to post by qmantoo


Science isn't about proving something, science is about finding evidence that supports theories (which themselves are formed based on what we find). You saying "that can't be a rock because it looks like fungus on a stalk" isn't scientific and has no supporting evidence apart from morphological, which is subjective in its nature.

If you want to disregard all scientific methods in this case because life on Mars may be completely unrecognisable to us, then there's no point in posting these pictures and saying "oh, that looks like an organism". For all you know, Mt Sharp to which Curiosity is heading might be one huge living organism. We just can't recognise it for what it is.

Personally, I don't think life on other planets will be categorically diffirent from life on Earth. Mars and Earth formed in the same way, from the same elements, had very similar environment and chemistry. If life here used water and organic molecules to form, why wouldn't it do so on other planets?

Science isn't about proving something, science is about finding evidence that supports theories (which themselves are formed based on what we find). You saying "that can't be a rock because it looks like fungus on a stalk" isn't scientific and has no supporting evidence apart from morphological, which is subjective in its nature.

If you want to disregard all scientific methods...

I have given evidence to support my argument that there is fungi on Mars. I have shown the round growing fungus bodies, I have shown the image of what looks like a stalk, I have shown immature fungus 'buds' starting to grow. I have even commented on what I feel may be fungus spores on the ground around the fungi. What else can I give in the way of evidence? Maybe you are just determined to deny it in spite of your asking for scientific methods? I really dont have any respect for science any longer, so please stop with the "scientific methods".

This is my theory and I am looking to colleagues here on ATS to debunk it. Now, I know what science says that this is a lifeless planet, but if this is what I suspect, then that scientific view is blown out of the water.

What is that structure in the first linked photo in the original post which looks like a fungus stalk? Please answer this question if you can without any further distraction.

reply to post by qmantoo


The real problem qmantoo is YOU and here is a prime example.

Originally posted by qmantoo
Really, when it all boils down to it, there is absolutely no excuse to modify images from Mars (example this link here where the parts at the left and right edge of the solar panel have different 'Y' shadow directions) and that is the main problem I can see with ALL space pictures from the different space agencies. Yes, my example is from NASA but they have their fingers in most space pies. If we got to see the unedited, then things would be so different. Up until then it is all just beliefs - yours and mine. Since we cannot go to space ourselves, and since we have some government 'modifications' to the data, we cannot trust the source in any shape or form.

Now in the picture above YOU blame NASA for editing the shadows were the real problem was YOU didn't understand the direction the light was coming from. YOU have also jumped to conclusion on other threads about things YOU think YOU see but YOU never listen to the explanations given by other members.

That's why ANYTHING you claim to see in an image has to to taken with a very large pinch of salt.

wmd_2008 I admit I got that one wrong.

However, it has nothing to do with this thread which you obviously cannot think of anything worthwhile to say on the subject.

Originally posted by qmantoo
wmd_2008 I admit I got that one wrong.

However, it has nothing to do with this thread which you obviously cannot think of anything worthwhile to say on the subject.

See it was worthwhile, you really jump in to quick you think you see something and post, your track record with images is BAD and also it shows that you consider everything NASA does is edited although it really shows you don't look for the clues in an image before jumping to conclusions.

I agree with phage that's not a stalk it's YOU seeing what you think it is, it was the same with the MI camera on the other thread you didn't know how it worked and again claimed NASA altered the image.

Originally posted by qmantoo
What is that structure in the first linked photo in the original post which looks like a fungus stalk? Please answer this question if you can without any further distraction.

I agree with Phage that it doesn't look like a fungus stalk. It looks like some flattened formation, possibly attached to the spherical thing, possibly not.

If you insist on sticking to morphology (and a vague form of it, to add) and disregarding everything we have learned about Mars so far, then you don't have much foundation to stand on, I'm afraid. With the same logic you could argue that the rat and the Hugo creature are really there.

Originally posted by qmantoo

Science isn't about proving something, science is about finding evidence that supports theories (which themselves are formed based on what we find). You saying "that can't be a rock because it looks like fungus on a stalk" isn't scientific and has no supporting evidence apart from morphological, which is subjective in its nature.

If you want to disregard all scientific methods...

I have given evidence to support my argument that there is fungi on Mars. I have shown the round growing fungus bodies, I have shown the image of what looks like a stalk, I have shown immature fungus 'buds' starting to grow. I have even commented on what I feel may be fungus spores on the ground around the fungi. What else can I give in the way of evidence? Maybe you are just determined to deny it in spite of your asking for scientific methods? I really dont have any respect for science any longer, so please stop with the "scientific methods".

This is my theory and I am looking to colleagues here on ATS to debunk it. Now, I know what science says that this is a lifeless planet, but if this is what I suspect, then that scientific view is blown out of the water.

What is that structure in the first linked photo in the original post which looks like a fungus stalk? Please answer this question if you can without any further distraction.

Question: Why do you not have respect for science any longer? I am very curious to know why you feel that way, especially since it was science that got the rovers to Mars in the first place.

A Scientific Theory is:

a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of knowledge that has been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experimentation.

It normally comes from a Scientific Hypothesis which is:

a proposed explanation of a phenomenon which still has to be rigorously tested.

I have a feeling that you are using the word Theory in a much more ambiguous use.

In the case of your "theory" (which is actually more a hypothesis, since it's something that has not been tested), the only supporting evidence that you have is a picture.

You could speculate as to what is in the picture. You can say: "It looks like (insert what it looks like here).".

But to go from speculation to an actual theory, you need to be able to have tested it to see if your speculation can go from that, to an actual working theory.

However, you (and others) are not doing that. You are looking at a picture of something and stating it as fact, with no way for it to be tested to even be proven as a workable theory. Daring others to "debunk" it.

Others have offered reasonable explanations for what it could be, based on other supporting evidence (climatic conditions present on Mars at this time, and other geological processes that have been directly observed and tested here on Earth, as supporting evidence).

It is up to you to decide what you want to believe. I and others will entertain all speculations, but in certain cases can not commit to a firm acceptance. Simply because there is no way to test it.

I'm not being immature, insulting, or unreasonable here (please do not compare me to other posters on here that do act that way), when I suggest that what is in your OP may not be life, but may only be mineral formations that look like that.

If you don't believe in science or the scientific method, then why even bother posting this thread in a science based forum? This forum (Space Exploration) is one where many of us that do believe in science and the scientific method hang out and converse. And we will bring those tools with us.

Were it not for science and the scientific method, you would not even have that picture to of posted. It took a LOT of science to get Curiosity to Mars and to land there. Even more science for it to navigate around on the surfaces, and even more science for it to be using digital cameras to take images and send them back to Earth.

Not to mention the science it took for you to have a computer/mobile device to talk about said picture on the internet.........

The only interesting thing in this thread was this link the OP supplied:
phys.org - Martian 'blueberries' could be clues to presence of life...

..........
Spherical iron-oxide concretions - dubbed "blueberries" - were first found on the Red Planet in 2004 by an earlier NASA robotic probe - Opportunity Rover - providing some of the first evidence for liquid water on Mars.

Earth-based analogues for these "blueberries" are found in the Jurassic Navajo Sandstone near the Colorado River, Utah, where the concretions range in size from small marbles to cannonballs and consist of a hard shell of iron oxide surrounding a softer sandy interior.

Previous theories suggested these concretions were formed by simple chemical reactions without the help of life. However, new UWA research shows clear evidence that microbes were essential in their formation.

This raises the possibility that Martian "blueberries" may not only reveal that water was present on Mars - but life too.
...........

Of course, if X is true on Earth we can't assume it's true on Mars too. The recent sample tests on Curiosity hint a life explanation is tricky, since it's a very inhospitable place. However, if I read this story right, this isn't about PRESENT life, it's about a residual lefover from PAST life. And recent news about mars hints strongly that past conditions were favorable for life. So perhaps...

Originally posted by jonnywhite
...Of course, if X is true on Earth we can't assume it's true on Mars too.

edit on 3-8-2013 by jonnywhite because: (no reason given)

Yeah, but physics is physics, and geological processes are geological processes, no matter if they happen on Earth or on Mars.

Given similar conditions on Mars and on Earth, similar geological processes would occur. Mars is just the planet next door; it isn't in a different universe with different physical laws.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People

Yes, but the apparent best examples of "blueberries" on earth involves an interaction with life. So if I read it right then we do not have a purely geologic explanation for blueberries.

Or did the article fail to mention other examples of "blueberries" on earth that have not interacted with life? Perhaps this is only applicable with spherical iron-oxide concretions...

In this thread, meteors and volcanic sources are given as explanations, but the article did not mention this. It only gave the example of the spherical iron-oxide "blueberries" near the Colorado River in Utah and showed that these were not purely geologic but instead life was involved.

And note this isn't about present life interactions, it's about the distant past. So what htis means is the OP is wrong about this being currently living life. It's actually residual signs of past life.

Did life gain a foothold on Mars billions of years ago:
www.dailymail.co.uk -
Mars had an oxygen-rich atmosphere 'more than a billion years before Earth'...

If so, why did it disappear? We know that since Mars is so small and because its volcanoes cooled that it lost a lot of its atmopshere. Perhaps life never started or maybe it was killed off or perhaps some of it's snugly buried deep beneath the surface feeding on the subsurface rocks. Or maybe, less likely, life is still there on the surface, defying our attempts to identify it.

Is the secret to all this still embedded somewhere within a martian meteorite:
en.wikipedia.org - Allan Hills 84001...
www.washingtonpost.com - NASA team cites new evidence that meteorites from Mars contain ancient fossils...
www.space.com - Meteorite-Based Debate Over Martian Life Is Far from Over...
www.discussworldissues.com - Astro-Biology: ALH84001 still being debated...

Recent evidence shows hte carbon is volcanic in nature, but that doesn't answer all the questions. Far as I understand, no explanation has conveniently explained everything.

We either need new techniques to answer old questions or we need better evidence.