Several years ago, on the planet Mars, NASA's rover Curiosity discovered something so
strange it forced planetary scientists to begin rewriting Martian history, a
process that continues today. The anomaly was found in Gale crater, a more than 150
kilometer wide so-called impact basin. At the center of the crater is Aeolus
Mons, also called Mount Sharp, a central peak reaching Heights of about 18,000 feet.
Among the layered minerals in this terrain the most curious of all the
Rover discovered is Tridymite, an extremely rare mineral which only forms
at super-hot temperatures and which is linked to volcanism on Earth.
At the time of the discovery in 2016, NASA scientist Richard Morris stated, “It
was the last mineral we expected to see. If this stands the test of time, it has a
lot of implications for how Mars evolved. We may have to rethink a few things.”
The reason tridymite was the last mineral NASA scientists expected to find
on Mars is simple. The red planet is not believed to have the kind of dynamic
subsurface plates that have always been thought necessary to create volcanic
activity. A similar dilemma was presented when Mars was recently found to have
significant seismic activity; a complete surprise to planetary scientists.
Indeed both conundrums reveal the striking limitations of the standard
theoretical toolkit in planetary science, including plate tectonic theory. Today,
the discovery of tridymite on Mars remains problematic. A recent ScienceAlert
article noted, “Although Mars shows extensive evidence of past basaltic
volcanic activity in some regions, the once putatively water-filled Gale crater
is not one of those regions, leading scientists to puzzle about how the mineral came to be there.”
A new paper published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters attempts to resolve the puzzle. A team of
investigators has proposed the ad hoc hypothesis that billions of years ago, a
magmatic chamber existed underneath Gale crater at a time when the crater is
believed to have contained a substantial lake. This chamber, the paper suggests,
remained dormant for an unusually long time, eventually exploding massively,
releasing silica-rich ash in the form of tridymite which then fell back down into
the waters of Gale crater. One basis the scientists cite for this speculation is the extremely focused
location of the anomalous tridymite. Mars geologist Kirsten Siebach states, “We argue
that because we only saw this mineral once, and it was highly concentrated in a
single layer, the volcano probably erupted at the same time the lake was
there. Although the specific sample we analyzed was not exclusively volcanic
ash, it was ash that had been weathered and sorted by water.” Of course the investigators have no
awareness of Electric Universe theory, including the hypothesis that Mars and
other rocky planets in the solar system were ravaged by high energy electrical discharge.
As explained in the feature length documentary film “The Lightning-Scarred
Planet Mars,” this hypothesis can explain countless Martian anomalies, including
its dozens of weird geologic formations. Such as frequently bizarre cratering;
it's long unexplained hemispheric dichotomy; its weird networks of rills and trenches;
and the stupendous Valles Marineris, a vast Canyon which stretches over 3,000
miles across the Martian surface. The question is, can very powerful
lightning produce tridymite? Tridymite is a crystalline form of quartz
which forms under low pressures at extremely high temperatures. Consider the relationship between
tridymite and another high temperature silicate called lechatelierite which is
a form of silica glass found in lightning strike features. In fact tridymite has indeed been found
as a product of lightning. In the book “The Data of Geochemistry” tridymite was reported as the product of
lightning on a roofing slate. No volcanism required. The very focused and limited range of
tridymite's presence at Gale crater's central peak should be expected if it
was produced by a stupendous lightning bolt. It must also be mentioned that
craters with central peaks have been commonly observed for many decades in
experiments with electrical discharge to solid surfaces. It's also important to consider another
type of mineral on Mars known as perchlorate. The mineral is found in such abundance
on Mars that some have considered its potential as a health hazard to future astronauts.
Various perchlorates are known to form by electrochemical processes or by electrolysis,
and it's been discovered that lightning strikes can produce perchlorate in the presence of chlorite.
Amazingly, perchlorates are 10,000 times more abundant on Mars than sands or soils.
Again, we're left to question the potential for meaningful progress in
astronomy and all of the theoretical sciences when the major surprises fail
to force any real reassessment of consensus theory. Institutionalized science does indeed
rewrite history through ad hoc provisions of theory, but always in a
fashion that never challenges the underlying paradigms. A beautiful parallel to the Martian
tridymite mystery can be found in just one of the endless puzzles in comet science.
The Electric Universe has always stated that our solar system's comets, asteroids
and meteoroids were formed in the same epoch of planetary instability that
produced the dramatic geology of the rocky planets. Of course from this perspective, comets
are not the primordial dirty snowballs of standard theory. Comet nuclei should appear exactly as
they have in every instance they've been photographed: rocky, desiccated and
displaying extreme planetary geology. If these bodies were indeed electrically
blasted from the surfaces of planets, then of course we expect to find
minerals that form at super-hot temperatures. This prediction was confirmed over a decade
and a half ago when NASA's Stardust Mission returned dust samples from the comet Wild-2.
When scientists on Earth tested the material, what they found was so
unexpected, they initially thought that the early sample may have been contaminated by the spacecraft.
Rather than the expected ancient interstellar grains, the Wild-2 dust
grains were much larger than expected and contained minerals such as anorthite
and diopside which require temperatures of thousands of degrees. NASA curator Michael Zolensky said of
the discovery, “That's a big surprise. People thought comets would just be cold
stuff that formed out...where things are very cold...It was kind of a shock to not
just find one but several of these, which implies they are pretty common in the comet.”
Like the aforementioned efforts to fit the Martian tridymite enigma into the
conventional framework of our solar system's four and a half billion year
history, comet scientists responded to the shocking Wild-2 discoveries with similar ad hoc speculations.
These range from the comet forming very close to the Sun, then being hurled into
the outer solar system, to explosive collisions in the early solar system and
ironically, even lightning in the primordial nebular cloud. Again, the alleged causative events are
placed billions of years in the past and are always restricted to the unproven
and very limited processes in the standard theoretical toolkit.
A recurring statement I've made over many years is that the Electric Universe
community can only hope for a fair and thorough hearing in the court of scientific investigation.
One cannot claim that this hearing has occurred unless, or until,
institutionalized science actually tests the predictive theories of the Electric Universe.
Why this has taken so long to happen, may itself prove to be a mystery for future generations to ponder.
[Music]