Mushrooms on Mars

[Skeptic Ginger]

1. April 16 and 20, 2007

2. They are Photos from Opportunity's Microscopic Imager, not from Curiosity

I knew I should have looked it up but I had a 50:50 chance.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I'll offer
"A distinctive characteristic of a living organism from dead organism or non-living thing, as specifically distinguished by the capacity to grow, metabolize, respond (to stimuli), adapt, and reproduce. Or at least four out of five."

Certain auto-catalytic cycles fit that description.
And, of course, fire.

 

[shemp]

Popular Mechanics used to be a very respectable magazine. What happened? When did they throw away their reputation and go clickbait?

 

[smartcooky]

I don't know. Maybe it's a horses and zebras question. Having heard hoofbeats, you can't rule out zebras without more investigation, but you could assume that it's probably horses.

That doesn't mean dismissal out of hand is a good approach.

Also, the fact that a group of scientists with good reputations said they were hematite, and had access to this data when they reached their conclusions, suggests hematite and wind fits all the available data, and should be considered the "horse" explanation.

They could be hematite. The colours as described by Devil's Advocate certainly fits the description. However, I am not yet satisfied with the "wind blowing the sand away" claim because there are problems with that theory.

If the wind blew the sand away it and left the hematite spherules behind...

1. Wouldn't the reverse also be true. Would some of the spherules not also have been covered and disappeared or appeared to grow smaller? Was that observed?

2. Why would the wind be strong enough to blow away sand but not blow away, or even move the smaller spheres.

3. This has to be a process which has been going on for a long time, perhaps millions of years. Where are all the previously exposed spherules. Some of these spherules were up to 8mm across, exposed from barely visible to full views in four days. That is a lot of sand that has been shifted so there ought to be piles of exposed spherules on top of each other.

4. The Martian wind is weak, very, very weak. Surface winds are typically 15 to 30 km/h, but with Mars' thin atmosphere (only 1% that of the Earth) the force exerted by the wind is miniscule, about 1/60th of the force of the same wind speed on Earth. The formula is q=½pv² where

q = dynamic pressure,
p = atmospheric density
v = wind velocity)

A wind of 30 km/h on Mars would exert about the same force as a 4 km/h wind on the earth. Even accounting for the lower gravity, is that enough to move the gritty Martian sand (not dust) around. Note that it takes winds of 100-150km/h to whip up those dust devils, and 200 to 500km/h for a Martian dust storm.

5. Individual dust particles on Mars are very small and slightly electrostatic, so they stick to each other, and to the surfaces they come into contact with. Why do the hematite spherules not appear to have dust and grit partlcles sticking to them?

ETA: One of the things I wonder about is whether there is any evidence that does not fit the "wind and rocks" explanation.

Difficult to say. Opportunity was not equipped with a wind speed detector.

 

[jonesdave116]

Also, this is course grain sand. Unlike the fine dust on Mars, this does not easilty blow away with the thin Martian atmosphere unable to exert enough force to do so.

I don't think the dust size is particularly large. The caption to the image says the 'mushrooms' are ~ 3-8mm in diameter. Very roughly, looking at the smaller ones, and assuming those to be 3mm, it appears that there may be say ten dust particles per 'mushroom' diameter. Which would make them ~ 0.3mm, or about 300 microns.
Dreading doing the maths (or even being able to find it) to work out whether these size of particles could be moved by Martian winds, I scoured the literature, and found a paper on which a certain Carl Sagan was a co-author;

A Windblown Dust Model of Martian Surface Features and Seasonal Changes
Sagan, C. & Pollack, J. B. (1967)
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1967SAOSR.255.....S

Admittedly, the paper is over half a century old, but the atmospheric pressures they use (5-15 mbar) are close to reality at the lower end.

Fig. 1 of the paper is the one of interest. It seems that quite moderate wind velocities would move the size of particles we are considering. Around 4-6 m/s. Say 15-20 km/h.

The authors then go on to estimate the velocity of wind required to get the dust airborne, and into the atmosphere, which doesn't concern our back of the envelope calculations here. We just need to get them moving over the ground. It looks like we can.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

There is evidence in the photos themselves that the spheroids are being unburied rather than growing in size. Even evidence of the cause being at least partially wind. (also potentially settling could cause some of it, and even potentially uplifting of the spheroids could be part)

Referring to post #61 by smartcooky we can see a row of 5 of these objects along the bottom in sol 1145 vs a row of 6 along the bottom in sol 1148.

The 4th from the left in each photo there is one spheroid in particular that appears like a 1/2 moon on sol 1145, and more spherical in 1148.

However, if you look carefully, you can also see shadowing in the darker "sand" material indicating a sort of mini "drift" or "dune". This indicates the sand material is not flat but instead piled higher right beside and on top of the 4th spheroid much like a snow drift.

Later even a small change in direction of the wind could remove that "drift" making the 4th object appear spheroid rather than 1/2 moon shaped.

There are more subtle clues that can be found too, but that one is the most obvious.

Looks to me like they are not growing to any measurable degree, but rather being uncovered.

 

[Pixel42]

I saw exactly what RBF saw when I first saw the photo, for the record. That bottom sphere has not grown, we are just seeing more of it because the sand covering the top bit has gone. Extrapolate that reduction in the sand cover to the rest of the photo and take into account how windy we know it can be on Mars and it's pretty clear that's what's happened.

I'm still curious about what they are and how they form, but there is no mysterious growth to account for.

ETA: also the sand we're now seeing seems to be a lighter colour than the (somewhat courser?) sand that previously covered it. My guess is that the second photo is how it usually looks, the first is the exception.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I saw exactly what RBF saw when I first saw the photo, for the record. That bottom sphere has not grown, we are just seeing more of it because the sand covering the top bit has gone. Extrapolate that reduction in the sand cover to the rest of the photo and take into account how windy we know it can be on Mars and it's pretty clear that's what's happened.

I'm still curious about what they are and how they form, but there is no mysterious growth to account for.

ETA: also the sand we're now seeing seems to be a lighter colour than the (somewhat courser?) sand that previously covered it. My guess is that the second photo is how it usually looks, the first is the exception.

IIRC, it is thought the "blueberries" are hematite concretions that formed in shallow surface water.

 

[Meadmaker]

That doesn't mean dismissal out of hand is a good approach.



They could be hematite. The colours as described by Devil's Advocate certainly fits the description. However, I am not yet satisfied with the "wind blowing the sand away" claim because there are problems with that theory.

If the wind blew the sand away it and left the hematite spherules behind...

1. Wouldn't the reverse also be true. Would some of the spherules not also have been covered and disappeared or appeared to grow smaller? Was that observed?

2. Why would the wind be strong enough to blow away sand but not blow away, or even move the smaller spheres.

3. This has to be a process which has been going on for a long time, perhaps millions of years. Where are all the previously exposed spherules. Some of these spherules were up to 8mm across, exposed from barely visible to full views in four days. That is a lot of sand that has been shifted so there ought to be piles of exposed spherules on top of each other.

4. The Martian wind is weak, very, very weak. Surface winds are typically 15 to 30 km/h, but with Mars' thin atmosphere (only 1% that of the Earth) the force exerted by the wind is miniscule, about 1/60th of the force of the same wind speed on Earth. The formula is q=½pv² where

q = dynamic pressure,
p = atmospheric density
v = wind velocity)

A wind of 30 km/h on Mars would exert about the same force as a 4 km/h wind on the earth. Even accounting for the lower gravity, is that enough to move the gritty Martian sand (not dust) around. Note that it takes winds of 100-150km/h to whip up those dust devils, and 200 to 500km/h for a Martian dust storm.

5. Individual dust particles on Mars are very small and slightly electrostatic, so they stick to each other, and to the surfaces they come into contact with. Why do the hematite spherules not appear to have dust and grit partlcles sticking to them?



Difficult to say. Opportunity was not equipped with a wind speed detector.

Well, those are good questions. I'm not really equipped to answer them, but I do know that there are, in fact, dust devils on Mars, which means that the Martian wind is powerful enough to lift sand into the Martian atmosphere.

And I also know that hematite spherules are heavier than sand, so it could make sense that wind powerful enough to move sand wouldn't be powerful enough to move small hematite spherules, so it seems that there is nothing glaringly obvious about why the wind and rocks theory wouldn't hold up.

So, I think it's worth asking the questions, but the fact that NASA isn't buzzing with excitement leads me to believe that the answers are kind of boring. Hopefully not everyone who is qualified to address the issues is ignoring them, but I am leaning toward the belief that they have, in fact, considered the possibilities, and small hematite nodules and drifting sand is in fact a pretty good, although not very exciting, explanation.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I am quite willing to give the benefit of the doubt to there being life on Mars rather than not because:

- there is a strong institutional pressure not to call something Life without overwhelming evidence
And
- the stakes for being wrong are really low

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

1. Wouldn't the reverse also be true. Would some of the spherules not also have been covered and disappeared or appeared to grow smaller? Was that observed?

Maybe. I don't know what the surrounding area looked like. There might have been rocks or things where the sand could blow away from that spot but not into it. Keep in mind that this is only a couple inches square.

2. Why would the wind be strong enough to blow away sand but not blow away, or even move the smaller spheres.

Due to the thin atmosphere it takes quite a bit of wind to even move these fine particles of sand. The hematite spherules are basically iron, which means they would be rather heavy compared to the smaller lighter sand grains.

3. This has to be a process which has been going on for a long time, perhaps millions of years. Where are all the previously exposed spherules. Some of these spherules were up to 8mm across, exposed from barely visible to full views in four days. That is a lot of sand that has been shifted so there ought to be piles of exposed spherules on top of each other.

They are all over the place at this particular location. Millions of them. They don't pile on top of each other because they are like a bunch of BBs, they are round and just roll down and spread out.

4. The Martian wind is weak, very, very weak. Surface winds are typically 15 to 30 km/h, but with Mars' thin atmosphere (only 1% that of the Earth) the force exerted by the wind is miniscule, about 1/60th of the force of the same wind speed on Earth. The formula is q=½pv² where

q = dynamic pressure,
p = atmospheric density
v = wind velocity)

A wind of 30 km/h on Mars would exert about the same force as a 4 km/h wind on the earth. Even accounting for the lower gravity, is that enough to move the gritty Martian sand (not dust) around. Note that it takes winds of 100-150km/h to whip up those dust devils, and 200 to 500km/h for a Martian dust storm.

Winds like that can exist on Mars. It is also possible that the rover did something to blow the particles away. I think the rover was doing some drilling at that location. I don't know the days. Maybe a spinning drill test blew the particles around.

5. Individual dust particles on Mars are very small and slightly electrostatic, so they stick to each other, and to the surfaces they come into contact with. Why do the hematite spherules not appear to have dust and grit partlcles sticking to them?

I don't know the answer to that one.

Orbital instruments had detected olivine in this area. And detected the presence of large amounts of hematite. That is one reason this location was chosen for Opportunity. Olivine in contact with water breaks down into a number of compounds, including hematite. That is a god indicator that at one time there was a large presence of water.

they expected Opportunity to find hematite. And it did. almost immediately. I think it was on sol 3. Opportunity used large airbags to reduce the impact on landing. It basically bounced around until it stopped, deflated the airbags, opened a container, and the rover drove out.

The airbags left bounce marks. Flat marks on the pebbled surface. They measured the disturbed and undisturbed areas with a number of instruments, including the Miniature-Thermal Emission Spectrometer. The Mini-TES is used to determine the composition of materials and compounds. In the disturbed area it found no hematite. In the undisturbed area it found hematite.

That was the same process used to determine the composition of the "blueberries". The rover drove to a place called the "berry bowl" where there are a lot of these spherules. It took measurements where there is a high concentration of the spherules and and place next to it that has none. Compare the two and there is the tell-tale graph of hematite. If these were mushrooms, presumably that graph would have been completely different.

 

[smartcooky]

Well, those are good questions. I'm not really equipped to answer them, but I do know that there are, in fact, dust devils on Mars, which means that the Martian wind is powerful enough to lift sand into the Martian atmosphere.

I think there might be some confusion here. The sand on Mars and the dust on Mars are two different things

Martian sand and soil are the fine regolith found on the surface of Mars. The sand moves only slowly in the wind due to the very low density of the atmosphere.

Martian dust, on the other hand, refers to much finer materials than Martian soil, with a diameter in the region of 3 to 10 micrometres. It is very light and is often observed to be picked up in dust devils and vast planet-wide dust storms. There is enough dust on Mars to form a layer 2m to 15m thick over the entire surface of the planet, but remarkably, major global dust storms such as the one that hit in 2001 only move the equivalent of just a few micrometres deep layer.

And I also know that hematite spherules are heavier than sand, so it could make sense that wind powerful enough to move sand wouldn't be powerful enough to move small hematite spherules, so it seems that there is nothing glaringly obvious about why the wind and rocks theory wouldn't hold up.

So, I think it's worth asking the questions, but the fact that NASA isn't buzzing with excitement leads me to believe that the answers are kind of boring. Hopefully not everyone who is qualified to address the issues is ignoring them, but I am leaning toward the belief that they have, in fact, considered the possibilities, and small hematite nodules and drifting sand is in fact a pretty good, although not very exciting, explanation.

I think I'd like to see a more complete explanation. I would have thought anything to do with dust and sand would be worth investigating, given that

1. There is a a planned soil return mission coming up in a few years, and

2. Dust and sand are goung to be a major problem that will need to be dealt with if they are contemplating human habitation.

 

[smartcooky]

Maybe. I don't know what the surrounding area looked like. There might have been rocks or things where the sand could blow away from that spot but not into it. Keep in mind that this is only a couple inches square.

Due to the thin atmosphere it takes quite a bit of wind to even move these fine particles of sand. The hematite spherules are basically iron, which means they would be rather heavy compared to the smaller lighter sand grains.

They are all over the place at this particular location. Millions of them. They don't pile on top of each other because they are like a bunch of BBs, they are round and just roll down and spread out.

Winds like that can exist on Mars. It is also possible that the rover did something to blow the particles away. I think the rover was doing some drilling at that location. I don't know the days. Maybe a spinning drill test blew the particles around.

I don't know the answer to that one.

Orbital instruments had detected olivine in this area. And detected the presence of large amounts of hematite. That is one reason this location was chosen for Opportunity. Olivine in contact with water breaks down into a number of compounds, including hematite. That is a god indicator that at one time there was a large presence of water.

they expected Opportunity to find hematite. And it did. almost immediately. I think it was on sol 3. Opportunity used large airbags to reduce the impact on landing. It basically bounced around until it stopped, deflated the airbags, opened a container, and the rover drove out.

The airbags left bounce marks. Flat marks on the pebbled surface. They measured the disturbed and undisturbed areas with a number of instruments, including the Miniature-Thermal Emission Spectrometer. The Mini-TES is used to determine the composition of materials and compounds. In the disturbed area it found no hematite. In the undisturbed area it found hematite.

That was the same process used to determine the composition of the "blueberries". The rover drove to a place called the "berry bowl" where there are a lot of these spherules. It took measurements where there is a high concentration of the spherules and and place next to it that has none. Compare the two and there is the tell-tale graph of hematite. If these were mushrooms, presumably that graph would have been completely different.

These are all interesting observations, although I would say that if those processes have been going on for millions years, I would expect to see more spherules.

Perhaps its a dynamic thing, an aspect of, or cycle in the Martian weather - the normal winds blows sand and dust away exposing these spherules and then a honking great global dust storm comes along every five and a half years and covers them all up again.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

These are all interesting observations, although I would say that if those processes have been going on for millions years, I would expect to see more spherules.

Perhaps its a dynamic thing, an aspect of, or cycle in the Martian weather - the normal winds blows sand and dust away exposing these spherules and then a honking great global dust storm comes along every five and a half years and covers them all up again.

Many of the spherules are not covered in sand or dust as the picture in this thread shows. Many are just laying around on rocks and the surface. Of course, many are also covered or partially covered by sand or dust because there is sand and dust that gets blown around on Mars.

You are looking at one set of pictures of a small 2 inch area. Opportunity took dozens or maybe even hundreds of pictures of these spherules. They are all over the place. In sand, in dust, on rocks. They are all over the place.

The pictures you are looking at and that are in the paper are just a small fraction of these pictured that were pulled out by a crank to support his on-going claim that there are mushrooms or fungi or fields of skulls or some other evidence of life on Mars that NASA is covering up.

With the wind storms on Mars, surely some of these spherules occasionally get covered up. Some get uncovered.

The evidence suggests that it is a surface layer of these spherules. A dusty sandy red surface gets covered with a bunch of grey BBs. Bounce a big balloon on the surface, they get kicked away and no BBs on that mark. Blow a bit of wind, some BBs become slightly more visible.

 

[catsmate]

As soon as you see "Rhawn Joseph" listed on a paper it can be dismissed as junk.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

As soon as you see "Rhawn Joseph" listed on a paper it can be dismissed as junk.

Yep. In defense of Popular Mechanics, this paper was actually published in an actual peer reviewed journal. That makes it news.

The journal has had some problems with publishing articles copied from other journals and allegations of exploiting scientists for fees to publish and such more rather standard fare of controversies.

The reports are the the journal seriously questioned whether to publish this article. This is a Chinese journal and Joseph, a neurosurgeon who has no expertise in these things, has been saying for years that NASA is filled with religious nuts who will never reveal life on other planets and only the Chinese can be trusted for information on space exploration. I don't know exactly how the journal works, but that bias is probably not irrelevant.

Joseph has made his own "journals" that are just his websites. Got a bunch of like-minded friends to support him and published "articles" in his "journals". Life from aliens. NASA is evil. Quantum consciousness time travel. And so on.

His "Mushrooms on Mars" paper found a small group of vague supporters and a sympathetic journal. The scientific community called bullspit. The journal retracted. Popular Mechanics reported.

 

[smartcooky]

Many of the spherules are not covered in sand or dust as the picture in this thread shows. Many are just laying around on rocks and the surface. Of course, many are also covered or partially covered by sand or dust because there is sand and dust that gets blown around on Mars.

You are looking at one set of pictures of a small 2 inch area. Opportunity took dozens or maybe even hundreds of pictures of these spherules. They are all over the place. In sand, in dust, on rocks. They are all over the place.

The pictures you are looking at and that are in the paper are just a small fraction of these pictured that were pulled out by a crank to support his on-going claim that there are mushrooms or fungi or fields of skulls or some other evidence of life on Mars that NASA is covering up.

With the wind storms on Mars, surely some of these spherules occasionally get covered up. Some get uncovered.

The evidence suggests that it is a surface layer of these spherules. A dusty sandy red surface gets covered with a bunch of grey BBs. Bounce a big balloon on the surface, they get kicked away and no BBs on that mark. Blow a bit of wind, some BBs become slightly more visible.

Yeah, the overall concept is right, and the evidence seems to support what you say here with one exception... These photos were taken on Sol 1145 and 1149 on the north side of Victoria crater. Opportunity landed on Sol 0, three years and two months earlier, and over 15km away at Eagle Crater.

None of this makes me any less interested in what is happening.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

Yeah, the overall concept is right, and the evidence seems to support what you say here with one exception... These photos were taken on Sol 1145 and 1149 on the north side of Victoria crater. Opportunity landed on Sol 0, three years and two months earlier, and over 15km away at Eagle Crater.

None of this makes me any less interested in what is happening.

You completely lost me. I don't understand how the different dates matter. Opportunity photographed and explored hematite and these spherules on sol 3 and sol 1149 ad beyond. For years. The only evidence of growing in all that is solely these two pictures. That claim ignores absolutely all the other evidence.

We must weigh the evidence:

1. Olivine rich landscape. Orbital signifiers of high hematite presence. Similarity to Utah Hematite concretions. Grey color consistent with hematite. Distribution consistent with hematite concretions and not at all with mushrooms. Thermal emission spectrometry analysis that confirms lab established signature of hematite.

OR

2. These pictures kind of look like mushrooms.

Weigh the evidence.

 

[smartcooky]

You completely lost me. I don't understand how the different dates matter. Opportunity photographed and explored hematite and these spherules on sol 3 and sol 1149 ad beyond. For years. The only evidence of growing in all that is solely these two pictures. That claim ignores absolutely all the other evidence.

We must weigh the evidence:

1. Olivine rich landscape. Orbital signifiers of high hematite presence. Similarity to Utah Hematite concretions. Grey color consistent with hematite. Distribution consistent with hematite concretions and not at all with mushrooms. Thermal emission spectrometry analysis that confirms lab established signature of hematite.

OR

2. These pictures kind of look like mushrooms.

Weigh the evidence.

Ok, Sorry. I thought you were implying that the landing had somehow hidden the spherules they photographed and three days later the wind blew the the dust away so they appeared again.

 

[SezMe]

ETA: also the sand we're now seeing seems to be a lighter colour than the (somewhat courser?) sand that previously covered it. My guess is that the second photo is how it usually looks, the first is the exception.

Don't you have to take the elevation and orientation of the sun relative to the camera to take color into consideration?