The spiral patterns in the Martian caps explained (maybe): http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-water-science-04b.html
Everyone here is probably sick of being off-topic about Martian water, and if not, I'm sure you're sick of my stinking opinions. (What? You're not? Well, what's *wrong* with you then? ;-) However, the above finding is somewhat further to a point I made earlier, about mineral processes that look biological and biological processes that look mineral. Pelletier was looking outside his field - at how slime molds can form spiral patterns - and lifted modeling techniques almost directly from that field of biology to produce a nonbiological explanation for something peculiar, conspicuous and intriguing. The spiral patterns in the Martian polar caps could be explained by ancient alien civilizations who decided to signal to possible other emerging intelligences in the solar system by macro-engineering/areoforming two of Mars' more visible large-scale features. Or one could leap to the conclusion that, since only life seems to be able to make these kinds of spirals and maintain them, the spirals are somehow evidence of much larger scale biological processes. It took a geologist to abstract away the governing equations from biology at far smaller scales and to make a much neater Occam's Razor incision: ice spiral formation can be driven by phase changes plus planetary rotation minus thick atmosphere. Water oceans on Mars still aren't life - there are recent results in studying Earth's ancient oceans pointing to a dearth of oxygen, for example, and Martian oceans might not have been around long enough to acquire any. (Or, through some chemical processes we don't know about, they might have had much more oxygen - who knows? Or they may have been a pretty decent environment for anaerobic life of some kind.) The point is: we don't know that much yet. And preconceptions can get in the way of finding out what we need to know. Going looking for marine fossils may be premature, and may waste valuable time and energy, if in fact the recent evidence is not of water, but of liquid CO2. So I'm still holding out for a possible CO2 sea/ocean/lake as an explanation for features that we, on our water planet, associate only with bodies of water. That doesn't mean that there haven't *also* been bodies of water on Mars, just that it doesn't look like the case is closed yet. Unless I've missed something. -michael turner [EMAIL PROTECTED] == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
