New Water Erosion In Endurance Crater
Opportunity, Sol 207 shows water erosion only hours old
While NASA and JPL scientists still claim that Mars is dead and dry, this image data proves otherwise. Here is a perfect image of water erosion so recent that the soil appears to be damp. This image is from inside Endurance Crater and shows that water has run off and undercut a large rock, leaving a wet channel in the soil.
The first image is a stereo pair (cross-eyed variety) showing the depth and sharpness of the feature. The lower left of the image shows the area where the water has cut through the soil and left a sharp trench.
The original image data is here at the NASA web site.
Other telltale signs are the wash areas that show how the soil and the spherules have been separated. This, once again, is due to the flow of recent water. Now, here is a color enhanced view (to help visibility) that shows the same feature in color and close-up.
The original image data is here at the NASA web site.
It would be ludicrous to suggest that this delicate feature could have only happened thousands of years ago. Sand and wind would erase it in a few weeks at most, filling in the channel next to the rock. And while some scientists suggest that liquid CO2 might be responsible for such features, this is absolutely impossible. The creation of liquid carbon dioxide cannot occur on the surface of Mars for two reasons- the temperatures are too high and the liquid cannot be created except under atmospheres of pressure. It never exists in a near-vacuum, such as there is near the surface of Mars.
In other words, water is the only substance capable of existing and performing this type of erosion on the surface of Mars today. Anyone can go to the library and refer to the CRC Handbook Of Physics and Chemistry and find that no other chemical compound can be responsible for this feature. Water alone fits the observations and the conditions that are present.
Furthermore, the soil is still wet as the image is taken. Proof is in the fact that this soil is still clumping together, not collapsed like dry sand. The next two images will prove that by showing the difference in wet and dry Martian soil today.
| This image was taken
inside Endurance Crater on Sol 123 when the rover pressed its instrumentation arm
against the soil. Note how it stuck together and even bulged when
pressed? Only wet soil can do this.
See how shiny it is? The sun is directly ahead (note the shadows of the fossil spherules). It is reflecting off the wet mud, creating the bright ring you see. The dark patch at the 2 o'clock position is where the mud stuck to the rover's instrument arm and peeled out of the impression. The original image is here at the NASA web site. |
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| This image was also taken
inside Endurance Crater, this time on Sol 236. It shows where the instrumentation arm was
pressed against dry sand. See the obvious difference?
The dry sand cannot hold an imprint, just as it cannot on Earth. Any child knows the difference between wet and dry sand. Why is it that NASA and JPL scientists will not face this simple but obvious fact? The original image is here at the NASA web site. |
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The bottom line is this- Mars is still wet today. It never completely dried out and has had liquid water on its surface and also underground for over four and a half billion years, just like the Earth. While Mars lost its oceans long ago, it never lost the underground sources of water like springs and geysers. Ice alone on Mars is estimated to be equal to the amount of ice covering Greenland on Earth today. Underground water resources trapped in the rock of Mars' mantle could be sufficient to fill oceans even now. Even Earth is estimated to have about ten oceans' worth of water trapped in its mantle today.
UPDATE:
NASA quote: While recent studies of the smaller crater nicknamed "Eagle" revealed an evaporating body of salty water, that crater was not deep enough to indicate what came before the water.
This article is very clear on what NASA found in Eagle Crater near the start of the Opportunity mission- it claims that Eagle Crater revealed "an evaporating body of salt water". This confirms that they have located water on the surface of Mars. Here is the article (top article and fifth article). But is this just a poor choice of words, or an unintentional slip? "Evaporating" means right now or in the process of evaporating, not "evaporated" as in times past.