Alien Anomalies

qmantoo · Teaching the truth

RE: Meteorites on Mars

Eaol · Veteran Member

qmantoo wrote:

The meteorites only burn up because of our atmosphere heats them up and they disintergrate. On Mars, there is not so much atmosphere (we are told) so there should not be so many meteorites burning up in the thin atmosphere.

If you've looked around the net as long as I have, you would know that the Martian atmosphere can be seen from space, and it is just as blue as our own. Also, given the cumulonimbus clouds over the south polar terrain and the forests noted by Skipper, the large bodies of water around there, etcetera, there is reason to believe the atmospheric pressure is much more than they tell us, and readings from rovers (there is room for interpretation of the graph, I did see it on Youtube and it was deleted from the NASA site) indicate temperatures around 90 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and very low temperatures (not sure how low) at night in the areas the rovers were exploring.

I may not know what I'm talking about on this point, but does anyone else get the feeling that some of these craters in the MSSS images almost look photoshopped? And also, some of the older images of what appeared to be forests with lakes were completely different, rocky/icy/sandy terrain in newer images of the same locations? And also, pictures taken of the same area don't really seem to be consistent at all with the details, shape of the terrain, texture, etc.

One single drop · Senior Member

The tumbling meteorites.
An interesting image recently appeared on the HiRISE webside together with some strange explanations of the mechanism, which should have caused the field.

Which ones are the primary hits ? Which amounts of energy we have to assume to create the claimed effects ? How high has the debris to fly to blow secondary craters into the ground that big, after returning to the surface ? In a nearly straight line ?
Which kind of debris was it, regarding the vaporizing kinetic energy of such impacts, turning solid rock into clouds of glowing dust ? Lower velocity but same diameter as primary craters, as the description says ?
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_020280_2000

Chain Gang (ESP_020280_2000)

Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

This chain of secondary craters just happened to be well-aligned with HiRISE's groundtrack (the path across the surface that a spot directly below the MRO spacecraft would trace out). Because of this favorable alignment, HiRISE was able to capture most of the chain in one 25 kilometer-long (15.6 mile) image.

Secondary craters occur during the formation of an impact crater. Impacts are very high-energy events, and while some rock gets melted or vaporized, other rock gets broken into large chunks and flung outward from the crater. Some of these pieces have enough energy to form small craters themselves when they reimpact the surface of Mars.

These craters can be of the same diameter as primary craters (those created directly from bodies entering the Martian atmosphere from space). In addition, primary crater clusters also exist (see examples like PSP_010200_1805, PSP_010292_1785, and ESP_017270_2265), leading to difficulties in determining the process responsible for creating a particular group of craters. One distinguishing feature of secondary craters is that they tend to be irregularly shaped, due to the lower velocity of crater ejecta.

Written by: Nicole Baugh

Original release: 4 January 2011

qmantoo · Teaching the truth

The meteorites only burn up because of our atmosphere heats them up and they disintergrate. On Mars, there is not so much atmosphere (we are told) so there should not be so many meteorites burning up in the thin atmosphere.

Possibly the Martians go round collecting up meteorites and storing them somewhere, or maybe they are used as fuel, or for their mineral content etc. If this was the case, any meteorites that do drop have all probably been rounded up and removed. Just an idea?

Eaol · Veteran Member

I feel annoyed by this as well. Did the meteorites just suddenly stop falling? Yeah right. However, I could argue that the reason we don't see (or shouldn't see) Mars pockmarked with meteorite craters is the same reason we don't see craters all over the place on Earth - most small objects burn up before reaching the surface.

(Well, on Earth, some people would argue it is because most of the planet's surface is covered with water, however this would not explain the near-absence of craters on the ground).

qmantoo · Teaching the truth

If water was covering that area, then there would be lots of sedimentary rocks or sand or deposits or other evidence - particularly if there was life there (and I cannot believe that a large body of water over thousands/millions of years would not have something dropped into it from space). Of course, I know nothing about this and it is just a thought.

I seem to have the impression that a lot of these meteorites have high iron content which as gbull says, would rust over time. Although after being exposed to the atmosphere for further thousands/millions of years I suppose we dont know what would happen.

These timescales boggle my mind when we talk about something being on the surface for millions of years without any changes except for weathering.

gbull · Veteran Member

sounds reasonable,

but that's all that's left?

unless it's solid metal. confuse

that doesn't corrode in water?

Timewarp · Dedicated to the truth

I believe the Meridiani Planum region, at one time, was covered with water and was possibly a large deep sea. This could explain why the meteorites leave no impact marks because the resistance of the wated impeded their downward travel.

An interesting article can be found at the following url.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2004/02mar_meridianiwater/

qmantoo · Teaching the truth

I really have difficulty believing this explaination of how meteorites come to be on the surface of Mars. What we have so far is the official version of events which you can read at the bottom of this post and also as Marsrocks explains in this thread.

Maybe it is because I cannot imagine millions of years of weathering on a planet like this. Maybe it is because I want to see half-weathered meteorite sites so that I can see the process in progress so that I can visualise it? There must be loads of metiorites which land on Mars each year and so there should be examples of recently-landed ones - if only the Rovers can find them.

I really dont know, but I would like to read up more about it and have more opinions as there must be other theories how they got there without any crater, or visible weathering evidence (apart from the holes in the meteorite).

The official explanation seems to be a theory or hypothesis because they just cannot understand it either. However, I have to point out that meteorites found in the deserts on Earth probably do not have craters either, so their explanation maybe the correct one.

One of the comments asks the question
It is just weird that none of these meteorites that have been found have any impact evidence to the surrounding area or any evidence of damage to the meteorite itself.
Reply

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phoenixpics says:
September 24, 2010 at 5:19 am

It’s not weird at all. These meteorites most likely landed many, many millions of years ago (judging from the erosion they have suffered) and didn’t actually land on the terrain they’re on now. They landed on ground that was itself eroded away overtime, dropping down onto this terrain incredibly slowly. That’s why there’s no sign of any craters – the craters themselves have eroded away over aeons of time, leaving the meteorites standing alone as we see them now. Thanks for your comment