I used to be part of the Independent Mars Research Group that studied images released by MOC. Around 2000-01 we started viewing some images that centered around an area on the Martian South Pole known as the 3 Degree ring. I along with a few other described these images as appearing to be jets or geysers.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/main/index.html

I made an image of this over 5 years ago depicting that anomaly and a few others. Of course we thought it to be more likely to be organic in nature so who knows maybe that vindication will come true too as well! We called these things Puffers after the type of fungus that puffs when squeezed and spreads its spore by the wind. Which is one way a life form on Mars would easily reproduce. We had also suggested that they could even be hydrothermal geysers as produced in the second image. It is surprising that us "amateurs" could determine visually what took the guys at JPL 5 years to discover. They were originally labeled by the "scientific" community as being dark underlying material being revealed as lighter snow or CO2 was sublimating.

 Sometimes it is not a trick of light and shadow and you can ask Richard Hoagland on that one.

The image was posted in a artist gallery dated March of 2001

http://excalibur.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=41466

Also I found one other image that might be of intrest. Showing what is surely a river on mars!

http://myweb.cableone.net/acbeverage/Leftatmars/MARSPAGES/RiverISS.htm

Now that should take them another 5 years to "Discover".

Yup. They know a lot more besides this that they're not telling us. As usual, the government treats us all like mushrooms, and we, the taxpayers, are the ones who paid for all of this. I believe you can find a lot of reasons for this in the Brookings report.

cool beans!

hey have found that during the spring/summer season, rivers DO flow. It appears that there is a quite large amount of  water just below  the surface. But we could never be sure before, basicly because we didn't take enough pictures for a long enough time to see it happen. They now have pictures of it, and reported on it in a scientific mag a few months ago. But the rivers are not constant...more like a snowmelt off of the mountains, here on earth. But, if there is water..

Vile,

There had to be some explaination for what appears to be relatively recent river beds on the face of Mars. As you well know the Martian atmosphere can't achieve liquid water as the triple point  of solid liquid  gas as defined by pressure vs tempersture just isn't there.

 I firmly believe that they will eventually find simple life forms on Mars. I do not nor should anypone else expect to find advanced civilations there as does Mr Hougland. Although he does present some interesting pictures from NASA his interpretations leave something to be desired - like any training in geology whatsoever. I do find the man intertaining and he should be listened to but only in the vein of  Groucho Marks or Eric Idle. 

 I congratulate you on your insight.
-TJ

TwistedBolt,
If caverens developed beneath the surface of Mars and gases built upwithin these caverns  then underground rivers would be possible. Dr Warren Nokleberg once said there is no such thing as an underground river but although he is one of the most brilliant men I have ever met, I have always disagreed with his generality.)

Surely ground water exists on Mars as it does here . the overburden wold provide the necessary pressure. I wouldn't be expecting above-ground  rivers on Mars, however  Outside of an occasional gullywasher that carries it's own temporary atnosphere along with it perhaps powered by (are you ready for this - I'm gonna name something after Vile again)  "Vile's Geiser".

BTW sorry for the crossthread
-TJ

On a related rover image at the site, it appears the Mars soil contains moisture in some form. The way the dirt sticks together seems to compact in a manner that appears damp or muddy rather than powdery dry. (Much like like an otherwise dry dirt road in the early morning hours.) If that's the case, the odds for microbial organisms there seems pretty good.

You only had to ask  and I would have told you there are rivers here!

And will you stop sending these pesky robots over here. I'm fed up with having to repair them for you when they crash-land.

Ok, this might sound silly, but... WHY do people always make such a fuss about water on other planets?? I know that people expect life to be more likely to appear in a place where there is water, but why? I mean who says that water is needed for life? Yea, life as we know it on earth tends to like water, but why does extra terrestial life NEED to resemble terrestial life per sé?

I think we are lied to a bit about Mars. I don't think there are any civilizations there but I think that Mars was an abode of life and still has some clinging on in some areas. I think that the water can exist but it is very briny water lowering its freezing point and possibly its sublimation or evaporation point as well.

I think one reason for the little “white” lies was mentioned above about the Brookings report on contact with extraterrestrial life. In the report at least at the time it was recommend that a slow leak of the knowledge of life outside our own messed up home should be done. This would prevent panic and keep most religions intact. In my opinion we have been so thoroughly washed in the belief through media and movies that “Aliens” exist its time to start larger leaks of this information.

Who knows maybe we could stop fighting each other for 5 minutes to take a look around us and marvel at all of the beauty that has been created and find we are not alone.

And life would be likely to exist at mars because...?

Where there is water there is life. We are just barely scratching the surface here on our own planet as to where life exists. Places once believed to be devoid of life are found to be teaming in habitats until the last 20-30 years were undreamed of. The bottom of the oceans, super hot springs, desolate seemingly dry wastelands places that once seemed impossible to harbor life.

Life seems to be tenacious and if life did not spontaneously begin here (which I believe it didn’t) then it had to start somewhere Mars could have been that place. Although I think that life has found its way across the vastness of space not just here but to several planets and possibly moons! I think we will find life on Europa (Jupiter’s moon) if we can ever make it there.

Life just like the little dandelion seed can set adrift on the winds of space to land on any planet and begin the process all over again.

Funny how that same species seems to be the only one who wants to find out about life on other planets, is also the only species in this solar system with the capability to wipe out not only ourselves but possibly most of the life here as well.

 I find it a bit ironic that the Mars Polar Lander was supposed to land here as well.  It carried a couple of probes that were supposed to be launched along with the Lander to burrow into the Martian soil and run tests for water and life.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/index.html

Funny how this probe seemingly did not make it. I however think that it did, and went dark because of what they have found at the polar ice caps. If life was detected it needed to be studied first so the scientists don’t look like morons when they announce what they have found. Makes sense to have a good description of extraterrestrial life before you panic the general public.

Vile, I totally agree. The National Geographic magazine has a very interesting article in their Sept. issue on  underground river and cave systems being explored in New Britain. Makes you stop and wonder.

Yeah, I think the Martian life-forms that are not being reported by publish-or-perish NASA scientists are hiding the 250 MPG carburetors that panicked Detroit and the oil companies a few decades ago.

In fact, George Bush’s science advisor reportedly told a fake reporter at a recent White House pool party, that they think terrorists planted a remote control device on the Polar Lander, which actually did land on Mars, and is now being used by them to spy on White House pool parties.

News Flash!  Analysis of images taken with ESA's Huygens probe suggest Strawberry shaped creatures cavorting in several large liquid nitrogen lakes!

Seriously though, scientists are necessarily conservative when it comes to shouting eureka!  A conspiracy of silence is almost impossible with scientists or politicians.  They always want to be first, in order to advance their careers.  Remember, public science is not about the search for truth, but the search for funding.  

From an Apollo mission technician/engineer.

heh..;) the reason we look for water and life, is because of the small sample size of environments (just 1 planet with life on it so far..;) Theoretically there could be silicon-based lifeforms, but until we get out there, it's hard to say. (There's some lifeforms on the bottom of the ocean that utilize sulfur, but that's as weird as it gets so far..;)

"Extrraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"...I just like the sound of that..;) Heaven knows what we'll find, but I just wanna go!..;)

Quote - Where there is water there is life.

Why? (no really, why?)

Quote - Life seems to be tenacious and if life did not spontaneously begin here (which I believe it didn’t) then it had to start somewhere Mars could have been that place. Although I think that life has found its way across the vastness of space not just here but to several planets and possibly moons! I think we will find life on Europa (Jupiter’s moon) if we can ever make it there.

single-celled proto-organisms invented intereplanetary or even interstellar travel?

Quote - Funny how that same species seems to be the only one who wants to find out about life on other planets, is also the only species in this solar system with the capability to wipe out not only ourselves but possibly most of the life here as well.

If you're on top of the food chain u need to have the ability to exterminate yourself, how else would there be a balance? :tongue2:

Water necessary for life ? Perhaps not - back in the long ago, I remember someone talking about a theory of life based on silica rather than carbon. In fact there are diatoms with silicious shells but even then the little critters are based on carbon and need water to survive. So at this point a silicon based life form is still a theory.

Although It may be possible that some life form or other might not require water to survive it doesn't seem likely to me.I think it is a matter of what is likely and what is detectable with a limited budget rather than what is necessary. 

I guess it is in the nature of human beings to assume that our own composition is of such perfection that we shouldn't expect anything significantly different to exist at all... Or it is in our nature to be narrowminded and block ourselves for posibilities that we cannot relate to previous expereince.

Something like that anyways :P

Of course life exists on Mars. Checkout my location!

<--------------------

Our nature is more to care about who is the biggest Americanist Idol loser worshipper instead of where are we going where did we come from...

That's not 'our nature' it's the nature of mediocrity.
Just think, if 100 is the average IQ, then close to half of the people may be below 100. ;)
Remember that when you have one of those days when you feel like you're surrounded by idiots.

(Shhh, I know it's more of a bwell curve, just sounds funnier when you tell the story this way)
[Did I mention stupidity and ignorance are my biggest pet peeves? ... Oukay, Kitty, off the soapbox... shoo...]

With "our nature" I mean the nature of humanity as a whole rather then individuals. An individual can change the vision of humanity, but it's the vision of humanity as a whole that dictates the road on which we proceed to find new knowledge.

We tend to increase our own believes based on the fact that others agree with us. Quantity means truth. A simple and quite easily visualized example of the importance of the opinion of the masses and throughout our history are our beauty ideals. Being fat was considered beautifull for a while because it meant you were rich and could afford good life. The romans had special "bra's" to prevent growth of breast, because that was considered beautifull; in contrast now we insert silicon to increase breast size because it is a current beauty ideal. Having no ass was considered pretty not too many years ago, now we see big booty's all over tv in rap music video's, movies, commercials, magazines and we consider it beautifull. '

Now for those who consider this type of example too superficial and too ridden of pure scientific logic, lets look at another example that is relates to astronomics. It did find it's manifestation longer ago, but it's just as valid an example. For thousands of years, we thought the earth was flat. It looked flat from our perspective, so that's what it had to be. We all believed it was, so we considered any other opinion to be wrong. It was only later, when our perspective on the world had grown that the idea that the earth was round was stronger, then the beliefs of the masses. Which introduces to us the next important point;

We identify ourselves by the world around us. Even fantasy stories that we know aren't possible find all their roots in resemblance to the world around us. For the largest part of our existence we believed the world to be flat, untill we didnt. For the largest part of our existence we haven't known that there are other worlds besides our own, untill we didnt. For the largest part of our existence we havent had any knowledge that would indicate that there is even the possibility of life somewhere else, because of a lack of a "somewhere else". For the longest time we didn't consider the possibility of life existing in forms significantly different from us, untill we could relate knowledge gained about the world to the point where we could proove the theoretical posibility of silicon-based life-forms. We identify truth by our conseption of reality. Even our gods we've created after our own image. I think maybe it's similarly been ground into our vision of the world over the course of many, many, many thousands of years that life should resemble us, that water means life, that life should be serched for in our likeness.

It's the thought that we are the pinnacle of evolution in the sense that "this is the way life should be, and this is the evolutionary road life should be on" that keeps our quest for extraterrestial life on the road it is on. But is it the only way?

oh, and american idol is hardly related to the search for extraterrestials. Although you might somethimes think some of their "singing" acts could be part of some exotic alien rituals.

Quote - I guess it is in the nature of human beings to assume that our own composition is of such perfection that we shouldn't expect anything significantly different to exist at all... Or it is in our nature to be narrowminded and block ourselves for posibilities that we cannot relate to previous expereince.
Something like that anyways :P

It's in the epistemiology of the human awareness and existence.... here, you might find this interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology

Quote - Our nature is more to care about who is the biggest Americanist Idol loser worshipper instead of where are we going where did we come from...

Wait, I'm confused, are we supposed to worship the winner or the loser, or the loser winner or is the one whom loses actually the real winner? And, and... is it idolize or worship, do those two mean the same thing, or are they sufficiently different, and how many years before it doesn't really matter? Does the schrodingers cat care, and does it care when it's in the box or outside of it, is a cat capable of caring, and do we care if the cat cares?   ;)

[Sowwy, i''s fwiday awfewnoon, and I'm hafing an affack o'jus plain siwwy]

Siwwy wabbit, twicks aw fo' kidz. As for Schrödinger's cat; the cat only cares about being in the box if he is alive, but not if he is dead. As to whether the cat is dead; the answer depends upon which observer is "observing", since the cat must be considered an observer as well. I must confess that Vile's last post in this thread had me scratching my head as well. Oh well, rather than try to puzzle that one out, I think I will go tackle something simpler...like Quantum entanglement.

hahaha sounds like ur a brainiac sometimes :biggrin:

Quote - Siwwy wabbit, twicks aw fo' kidz. As for Schrödinger's cat; the cat only cares about being in the box if he .......   .......like Quantum entanglement.

What if the cat is a she? ;)
Quantum entanglement ... now that sounds like a 'Saturday Night Special Poser Render'
Kind-a like mudwrestling, but fanceee, riiight?
[don't ask me what it is I'm going on about - oh the things we think of while waiting for a render]

Quote - With "our nature" I mean the nature of humanity as a whole rather then individuals. An individual can change the vision of humanity, but it's the vision of humanity as a whole that dictates the road on which we proceed to find new knowledge.

Ah yes, the Borg Syndrome...the collective.  The concept "Humanity as a whole" does not exist, except as a philosophical dead-end, with no rational epistemological foundation.  It is the interaction of individual humans that produces the sense of cultures, not some impossible collective entity.

So what is the nature of "humanity as a whole?" Who determines what that nature shall be? Hitler, Stalin, and Mao claimed to represent large portions of "humanity as a whole,"  and they certainly thought they knew where to dictate the road on which “the whole” would proceed!

One cannot understand the nature of the stars by studying a general observation of the large-scale effects of stars.  The nature of stars is understood by studying the nature of individual stars.

Statistics cannot define the individual, individuals define, and are the basis of statistics.  The same goes for cultures, or humanity for that matter.

*@*Ray- I don't really claim to be a "braniac", but I've played one in an industrial training film.    

@Conniekat -What if the cat is a she? ;) Oooops! Very good point, and I apologise if I appeared sexist! BTW, I never put cats, male or female, in a box unless it is their idea, which it frequently is. They are such helpful (and curious) creatures,lol. -Quantum entanglement ... now that sounds like a 'Saturday Night Special Poser Render' Kind-a like mudwrestling, but fanceee, riiight? Actually, that is true; but they are very, very tiny mud wrestlers. I really want to see the render when you are done.

If I were to answer any of these questions I'd say things like:

If a cat were trapped in a box and were alive you'd know it!

It is not important that you know the sex of the cat as long as she knows it.

The sound of one hand clapping:- the fact that you can't hear it affects you and the lives of everyone you touch.

Asking the right question is more important than having the answer to the wrong one.

 . ..

but since I find philosophical discussions that try to assess "the nature of man" boring  . .
I'll just leave it at: "sorry to hear about Mr. Schrödinger's cat" 

Quote - Ah yes, the Borg Syndrome...the collective.  The concept "Humanity as a whole" does not exist, except as a philosophical dead-end, with no rational epistemological foundation.  It is the interaction of individual humans that produces the sense of cultures, not some impossible collective entity. So what is the nature of "humanity as a whole?" Who determines what that nature shall be? Hitler, Stalin, and Mao claimed to represent large portions of "humanity as a whole,"  and they certainly thought they knew where to dictate the road on which “the whole” would proceed!

One cannot understand the nature of the stars by studying a general observation of the large-scale effects of stars.  The nature of stars is understood by studying the nature of individual stars.

Statistics cannot define the individual, individuals define, and are the basis of statistics.  The same goes for cultures, or humanity for that matter.

Humanity as a whole just encapsulates all humans. This collective includes individuals, cultures, subcultures. They're all part of the formula. "humanity as a whole" doesn't need to be a singularity. It just includes all diversities. It's a formula with a multitude of possible outcomes. Still that doesnt mean that the outcomes aren't limited within the range of visions and knowledge contained within "the whole".

The "whole" is in my opinion the sum of all the input, which results in a certain output. But this output doesnt need to be singular at all.

Quote - Siwwy wabbit, twicks aw fo' kidz. As for Schrödinger's cat; the cat only cares about being in the box if he is alive, but not if he is dead. As to whether the cat is dead; the answer depends upon which observer is "observing", since the cat must be considered an observer as well. I must confess that Vile's last post in this thread had me scratching my head as well. Oh well, rather than try to puzzle that one out, I think I will go tackle something simpler...like Quantum entanglement.

There is always a third state, especially when the cat is named Greebo.

Greebo had spent an irritating two minutes in that box. Technically, a cat locked in a box may be alive or it may be dead. You never know until you look. In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.

hmm..depends on the frequency distribution; standard deviations, etc. Intelligence is seen (maybe not proven, though) as the typical bell curve with 100 as the center point.  (Dang, 20 years since college, and I actually remember this much Econ 350..;)

Hey, when we have another planet or body with evidence of life other than our own, we'll have a basis for comparison. Extrapolating is risky with only 1 sample..;)

With my cats it depends on the box.
If it's the vet box, the Cat isn't dead, but it's ready to Kill.
If it's the cheap grocery store box, the Cat only looks dead, but is deeply asleep.
If it's some sort of a fancy box meant for cat's enjoyment, there's no Cat in it.
If it's a litterbox, it just plain stinks.