NEWEST ROVER TO LAND ON MARS 8/6/2012

Wait, the fish ate the methane? I didn't even know there were fish in the Martian atmosphere.

It'll be really cool if Mars is full of methane eating dirt-fish.

Sorta like Dune, only on a much smaller scale.

It really is perplexing to me that the reports of methane plumes from both orbital stations as well as earth based observations (from a few years ago) could be so different from what the rover is reporting (now).

I wonder if orbital observations right now are registering methane or if they too are now reporting that the atmosphere is clear of methane. Very strange.

Maybe the martian atmosphere is full of methane fixing organisms which are so different from anything we have ever seen that our devices simply can't detect them. Maybe they bind with the methane which is produced by some geological event, and then rain back down on the surface leaving the methane in some type of composite form. Unlikely. More likely that Mars is full of rocks and dirt and not a whole lot else, and methane evidence from orbital viewpoints are just errors of some type. I'm getting cynical. Someone or something please discover something of significance before I expire from old age or boredom.

Wouldn't the lack of some life evidence on Mars blow holes in the theories about meteors bringing life to planets - including Earth?

Well, the lack of evidence certainly wouldn't help that theory. But it still wouldn't rule out the possibility of past life, or of well hidden life, so people could always claim that the evidence for life on Mars simply hadn't been discovered yet... and cling to their theory of a Mars origin.

Also, there's a big difference between discovering evidence of past (microbial) life on Mars and discovering live life currently on Mars actively metabolizing methane.

So even if the Methane excitement wanes and living things are never discovered, it'll be even more difficult to rule out any past life.

Heres an oddity from a mars orbiter photo, a double ejecta crater . There are a few hypotheses of what caused this. Any ideas?

From GRL.

I like the water filled plain hypothesis better.

I agree; we can observe that kind of event here on this planet. Changing levels of water for long periods of time changes the surface formation.

maybe theyre right as you posted CI. Ive copped some photos of craters on uropa and they look pretty much similar.

Just bothers me though that the sediment trils and is carried as one unit by the energy of impact. Doesn't seem clean to me. Heres a Europa pic. But remember ITS ALL ICE THERE, no sediment

Are they sure it's a crater and not an extinct volcano?

I always thought it was the same with those exceptions like meteors and lakes (probably others).

I do think its a crater.Volcanoes are rarely that symmetrical and that bukge in the center is kind of a giveaway.

Volcanoes run rather large on Mars, too, probably an effect of the low gravity (38% of G). Olympus Mons is three times as far above mean surface level as Everest is above sea level. If it were a volcano, it would have to be the puniest one on Mars.

good point. Consequent to that, volcanoes on mars usually have a huuuge ejecta field surrounding them because of the gravity and winds. A bolide crater, will usually show us a "material budget" wherein the crap on the strewn field is only about that which came from the center when it got smacked by a meteor.
An example of a neqt volcanoe IS Olympia Mons. It has a strewn field of ash and tephra that's as big as the state of Arizona. All because of the gravity differential

Ok. I'm convinced it's a crater and not a volcano. It's just that the ejecta field looks more like a "flow" than actual ejecta. It's got rounded edges like it was liquid, or maybe two different liquids which flowed at different rates.

Google shows multiple stories around that image which related the text which CI posted.

I wonder if it's possible that the impact occurred when that area was under water? Possibly a shallow sea at the time of impact? I wonder what the ejecta would look like under a shallow ocean or tidal area?

Thousands of years of dust storms could have radically altered the appearance of the ejecta, too.

I kinda like the under water idea also.

Curiosity took this photo of the Earth and Moon in late January, this year.