Science Talk

Robert Clark · Guest

Just saw this discussed on www.abovetopsecret.com :

Scientific Evidence Of Life On Mars!! Why is NASA Obfuscating The
Truth?
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread346977/pg1

Despite the title on that forum, Levin is only arguing in a new paper
that the general scientific community took the "safe" approach to the
Viking life results not that there is an intent to obfuscate the
truth.
Levin in this new paper summarizes the new information found from the
Mars landers and orbiters that came after Viking and argues they give
further support to his view that Viking did indeed detect life on
Mars.
Just one image from the Viking 2 lander gives strong support, perhaps
even overwhelming support, for the idea that at least liquid water
brines, occurred at the Viking 2 landing site, and likely in wide
spread locations on Mars.

http://mars.spherix.com/spie2003/SPIE_2003_Paper_GVL_files/image007.jpg

This shows early morning water ice frosts at the Viking 2 landing
site. Observations from all the landers sent to Mars from Viking to
Pathfinder to the MER rovers have shown abundant salts on the surface,
which are known to greatly reduce the freezing point of water. The
temperatures at the VL2 site are believed to have reached to -10 C:

Articles
Soil and Surface Temperatures at the Viking Landing Sites.
HUGH H. KIEFFER
Science 17 December 1976: Vol. 194. no. 4271, pp. 1344 - 1346
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/194/4271/1344

This temperature is well within the range of liquid water brines,
which can be liquid down to -20C to -40C depending on the type of
salt. Note also that at the Viking landing sites, as the sites were
specifically chosen to be at low elevations, the atmospheric pressure
never fell below the 6.1 mbar triple point for pressure for liquid
water.

Water ice frosts have also been seen at the site of one of the current
MER rovers:

OBSERVATION OF FROST AT THE EQUATOR OF MARS BY THE OPPORTUNITY ROVER.
Geoffrey A. Landis and the MER Athena Science Team, NASA John Glenn
Research Center, 21000 Brookpark Road, mailstop 302-1, Cleveland OH
44135; *...@nasa.gov
Lunar and Planetary Science XXXVIII (2007)
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2007/pdf/2423.pdf

These rovers are at equatorial sites where the daytime temperatures
can be well above freezing.

That such frosts occurred at widely separate locations, from a middle
latitude to a equatorial latitude, implies they occur at widespread
locations on Mars.

Observations in Antarctica show such brines can flow as streams at
subfreezing temperatures before evaporating leaving salt deposits
behind:

IN SEARCH FOR WATER ON MARS, CLUES FROM ANTARCTICA.
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/saltmars.htm

Bob Clark