Welcome to Space News from the Electric Universe,
brought to you by The Thunderbolts Project™
at Thunderbolts.info
The official geological history of the planet Mars
is a confused and murky tale filled with contradictions and shifting narratives.
Astonishing scientific data obtained in the last decade
has only deepened the storytellers' confusion.
At the recent 8th international conference on Mars,
leading scientists from around the world
discussed the possible solutions to the Martian puzzles.
The July 24th edition of the journal Nature
outlined some of the problems facing Mars investigators.
"Mars researchers have found it increasingly hard to explain
how the planet might have stayed warm and wet in its early history.
"If, billions of years ago, the Martian atmosphere
had consisted mostly of carbon dioxide as scientists suspect,
it would not have kept the planet warm enough for liquid water to exist
for long periods of time."
The scientists are now speculating that Mars
may have once been similar to Antarctica today.
But as planetary geologist James Head summarizes,
"This is completely different than what we thought about before."
Mars geologist Phil Christensen also confesses,
"There's a lot of knowledge and not so much understanding."
We asked Thunderbolts picture of the day managing editor, Stephen Smith,
for an overview of the Mars' geological mysteries beginning with the question,
why do planetary scientists' theories about Mars continue to change so dramatically?
The simple answer is that there are more instruments orbiting Mars
as well as more Landers on the surface.
Orbital cameras show them a planet with structures that look like those found on Earth.
They use theories that were developed to explain what's found here
and then they transfer those theories into other environments.
The Phoenix mission for instance, was sent to Mars in 2007
and landed in the Martian northern latitudes.
One of the experiments it performed was to dig several trenches in the regolith
to see what could be discovered a few inches beneath the surface.
The trenches showed them white chunks of something that NASA immediately stated
was frozen water ice.
And after several hours the white chunks disappeared,
which the mission team announced was because atmospheric pressure is so low on Mars
that the ice sublimed directly into vapour without leaving any liquid traces.
And that could be what happened.
One problem with the explanation is that when Phoenix landed on Mars,
it had an electronic probe that was used to penetrate the sandy soil.
If water was located close to the surface so that the trenches could dig up ice,
the probe should have detected an electric current
because the water beneath the surface would have conducted electricity.
Since the probe didn't detect an electric current,
it actually returned a completely null-reading.
It suggests to me that the ice was actually frozen carbon dioxide.
And indeed, Phoenix expired when it was buried in almost 9 m of dry ice
which is frozen carbon dioxide, during the Martian winter.
Also, they detect what they think is water vapor
outgassing from different regions on Mars
and personally, what I think they're seeing
is the same thing that they think they're seeing on comets.
Many of my Picture Of the Day articles expand on what Wal Thornhill
has explained about water supposedly detected around comets.
What happens is that the solar wind, mostly hydrogen nuclei,
combines with the ionized oxygen from a comet
and that creates hydroxyl molecules.
So the same thing happens with Mars, since Mars has no magnetic field,
it has virtually no resistance to the solar wind impinging directly on its surface.
And since there's abundant carbon dioxide on Mars,
that's what comprises most of its atmosphere.
The same thing occurs there as on comets.
The solar wind ions combined with ionized oxygen atoms create hydroxyl compounds.
The energy for that chemistry is provided by the electrified environment that exists on Mars.
And listeners should familiarize themselves with Wal's holoscience.com article called
'First Evidence of Comet Ice - What Does it Mean?', for more information.
On the Martian surface, NASA sees river channels and other features
that flowing water supposedly created.
However, as explained in the documentary film "The Lightning Scarred Planet Mars",
countless of these features defy such reasoning under close inspection.
The gigantic canyons on Mars, such as Valles Marineris and Tractus Catena,
exhibit characteristics that preclude water.
There aren't any deltas, the bottoms of the canyons are flat
and there's no evidence that water cut them.
Also the canyons and trenches have steep cliffs rising vertically from the bottoms
with evidence that fulgurites or formations created by lightning,
are embedded in the canyon walls.
In these two cases though, the lightning must have been thousands of times
more powerful than anything on Earth or anything seen on Mars.
Another thing to consider is the so-called water flows
seen on the edges of gullies as well as the walls of some craters.
And according to Allan Treiman in the Journal of Geophysical Research,
about as mainstream a scientific journal as you can get, he said,
"The morphology and distribution of gullies on Martian slopes have been attributed
to the action of liquid water at the surface and in the near subsurface.
However, evidence for involvement of water was circumstantial
and by analogy with Earthly landforms that are mediated by liquid water.
Here, it is shown that dry flows of eolian dust or silt
can have all the geological features observed in the gullies,
and that their spatial distribution on Mars
is consistent with atmosphere circulation models.
Many details of this hypothesis remain to be investigated,
but it is wholly consistent with earlier inferences and interpretations
of the present-day Martian environment:
no liquid water, and dominated by eolian processes."
In other words, what Allan Treiman is saying is that dry avalanches of dust
as well as wind action, are responsible for features
that are constantly highlighted in various publications as water-based.
Mars displays a massive hemispheric dichotomy
with his southern hemisphere saturated with craters
and the northern hemisphere excavated up to 6 miles deep with remarkably few craters.
With meteor bombardment, one would expect
that craters would be randomly distributed on the surface.
After all, why would meteors preferentially strike
one face of a planet or a moon over another.
The northern hemisphere of Mars with its central uplift region,
could be considered the largest crater in the solar system.
Since electricity tends to follow spatial transmission lines
called Birkeland currents that are wrapped in electromagnetic fields,
if the discharge at the North Pole of Mars
was the result of an external electric field or fields
and the electrified object or plasma phenomenon was aligned with the pole,
then that's where the arc would make contact.
And since it would have enveloped the planet
as material was excavated from the north and ionized,
it would follow the field around the South Pole and deposit material there
and that indeed is what is seen on Mars.
Known processes in electrical engineering and plasma science
could account for much of the baffling Martian geology.
What are some of the best clues that electrical laboratory experiments
might provide for planetary scientists in the future?
Supposing that exogeologists conduct these experiments
which in my mind is doubtful,
I suggest that they use high-energy electric discharges
in various configurations on a variety of materials.
Some experimenters have already done research using relatively low power
because of the many dangers from high- frequency, high-amperage electrical devices.
Powerful arcs can generate extreme ultraviolet light
or even X-rays that are deleterious of seen without shielding
or welders' goggles at the very least.
Goggles are no good against X-rays though, only lead shielding is sufficient.
University labs are about the only places
where such energetic experiments might be conducted safely.
I would also suggest that ferrohydrodynamics
be considered as part of their repertoire.
Some hobbyists and scientists are using ferrofluids to
explore the activity of electric
magnetic fields on magnetically sensitive materials
like nano-particles of iron suspended in viscous fluids.
Also, how magnetic fields interact with finely divided iron oxide dust
should be explored since the surface of Mars is covered with iron oxides
in the form of hematite and magnetite.
If electrical events on Mars are ever considered to have taken place in the recent past,
many problems and difficult explanations might be resolved.
For continuous updates on Space News from the Electric Universe,
stay tuned to
Thunderbolts.info