------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Wed, 05 Jul 2000 22:55:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [cydonia] Did scientists NOT want to believe in liquid
water on Mars?
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I hope it's OK to post this to the list. I assume that since the list is
closed, copyright concerns don't apply. I thought it would be of considerable
interest, to some people at least. Malin made an incredible misstatement in
the article he wrote for Science Magazine on his "discovery" of evidence of
liquid water on Mars. I couldn't believe it, but I downloaded the article and
he really. Everything the author, Clark, says below is true about the facts
of Malin's incorrect statement versus the Viking and Pathfinder data.
=========================================================
Subject:
Did scientists NOT want to believe in liquid water on Mars?
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 21:36:56 GMT
From: Robert Clark <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy.
Newsgroups: sci.astro, alt.sci.planetary, sci.physics, sci.space.policy
Dr. Ron Levin alerted me to this statement about Mars that appears in
the recent paper by Malin and Edgett suggesting possible liquid water
on Mars, "Evidence for recent Groundwater Seepage and Surface runoff
on
Mars", http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/hottopics/index.html :
"atmospheric pressures are at or below water's triple point vapor
pressure of 6.1 mbar."
Measurements taken by the Viking landers showed the daily pressure
never dropped lower than 6.5 mbar at either lander site during the
entire length of time measurements were taken by the landers, 2 to 4
years. And at the northern site at Utopia Planitia the pressures
frequently reached 10 mbar. The Pathfinder mission confirmed this fact:
surface pressure never dropped below the triple point of water. It is
quite likely that throughout the entire northern hemisphere the surface
pressures are routinely above the triple point of water, except
possibly on the highest peaks on Mars.
Two web sites that give the pressure readings at the Viking and
Pathfinder locations are:
Weather Reports From Mars
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/MPF/science/weather.html
Mars Pathfinder Atmospheric Pressure "Movie"
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/MPF/science/pressure_movie.html
This is a commonly made error and frankly I'm puzzled by it. If
someone who favored Martian life made a statement like "organic
compounds are sure to be found on Mars because they are known to occur
on meteorites that impact Mars", then he would be roundly criticized
because that completely ignores the Viking results. Yet this incorrect
statement about Martian atmospheric pressures, which has been
contradicted by both Viking and Pathfinder, is routinely made even by
scientists who study the Martian climate.
I was astonished to see this on a web page maintained by NASA
scientists who study Martian weather:
"The average atmospheric pressure on Mars is only about 6 millibars
compared to the Earth's average pressure of 1013 millibars. The average
surface temperature on Mars is about -60 deg C compared to the Earth's
15 deg C. Because the atmospheric pressure is low and the temperature
at the surface is generally below the freezing point of water, water
can only exist as ice or vapor."
Is there liquid water on Mars or below its surface?
http://humbabe.arc.nasa.gov/mgcm/faq/liquid.html
This page strongly gives the mistaken impression that the pressure on
Mars is usually below the triple point of 6.1 mbar. It does mention
that pressures above this are possible but makes it seem like this is
an exception when actually the exact opposite is the case.
The web page also discusses models that show that even under the right
pressures and temperatures ice would turn to vapor rather than melt to
liquid water. However, such models have been criticized by Drs. Ron and
Gil Levin as making several dubious assumptions in their calculations:
Liquid water and life on Mars
http://www.biospherics.com/mars/spie2/spie98.htm
So why is it that scientists familiar with the Viking and Pathfinder
atmospheric results still say that the pressure on Mars is below the
triple point of water 6.1 mbar? In my opinion it is because scientists
did not want there to be liquid water on Mars.
The conclusion in regards to the Viking missions was "no life". Then
to support that conclusion it had to be promoted the idea that liquid
water on the surface of Mars was impossible. Consider: scientists
should be interested in getting out the true facts and data collected
by their instruments. Yet they routinely ignored the (in my view) quite
important fact returned by those instruments that the pressure on Mars
was within the range to permit liquid water. Why? The only conclusion I
can draw is that the idea of liquid water on Mars was an unpalatable
idea - and the only reason I can think of for that was that this would
have allowed the possibility of life on Mars.
=========================================================
------- End of forwarded message -------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Wingate
California Director
SKYWATCH INTERNATIONAL
Anomalous Images and UFO Files
http://www.anomalous-images.com
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