Woman's Face Found On MARS A Recent Image From Curiosity Rover SOL 137

After looking through some images of Mars Curiosity Rover's I found this ladies face etched in the lake on Mars.

The face on Mars is a really good likeness to a humans full facial features! This is probably millions of years old and looks remarkably like man! The image I found (Tim Lewis) is really eerie don't you think so?

Yet another face on Mars and this one looks better than the first original face on Mars? I was looking for anomalies but nothing like this? Honestly this image is on NASA's front page of their website! It's like they wanted someone to find it?

Yellowknife Bay Formation on Mars. LINK; It's creepy to say the least?

The image above is the original image

Original post information;

Feb. 6, 2017
NASA's Curiosity Rover Sharpens Paradox of Ancient Mars.

Mars scientists are wrestling with a problem. Ample evidence says ancient Mars was sometimes wet, with water flowing and pooling on the planet’s surface. Yet, the ancient sun was about one-third less warm and climate modelers struggle to produce scenarios that get the surface of Mars warm enough for keeping water unfrozen. A leading theory is to have a thicker carbon-dioxide atmosphere forming a greenhouse-gas blanket, helping to warm the surface of ancient Mars. However, according to a new analysis of data from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, Mars had far too little carbon dioxide about 3.5 billion years ago to provide enough greenhouse-effect warming to thaw water ice.

The same Martian bedrock in which Curiosity found sediments from an ancient lake where microbes could have thrived is the source of the evidence adding to the quandary about how such a lake could have existed. Curiosity detected no carbonate minerals in the samples of the bedrock it analyzed. The new analysis concludes that the dearth of carbonates in that bedrock means Mars' atmosphere when the lake existed -- about 3.5 billion years ago -- could not have held much carbon dioxide. "We've been particularly struck with the absence of carbonate minerals in sedimentary rock the rover has examined," said Thomas Bristow of NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California. "It would be really hard to get liquid water even if there were a hundred times more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than what the mineral evidence in the rock tells us."

Bristow is the principal investigator for the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument on Curiosity and lead author of the study being published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Curiosity has made no definitive detection of carbonates in any lakebed rocks sampled since it landed in Gale Crater in 2011. CheMin can identify carbonate if it makes up just a few percent of the rock. The new analysis by Bristow and 13 co-authors calculates the maximum amount of carbon dioxide that could have been present, consistent with that dearth of carbonate. In water, carbon dioxide combines with positively charged ions such as magnesium and ferrous iron to form carbonate minerals. Other minerals in the same rocks indicate those ions were readily available. The other minerals, such as magnetite and clay minerals, also provide evidence that subsequent conditions never became so acidic that carbonates would have dissolved away, as they can in acidic groundwater.

The dilemma has been building for years: Evidence about factors that affect surface temperatures -- mainly the energy received from the young sun and the blanketing provided by the planet's atmosphere -- adds up to a mismatch with widespread evidence for river networks and lakes on ancient Mars. Clues such as isotope ratios in today's Martian atmosphere indicate the planet once held a much denser atmosphere than it does now. Yet theoretical models of the ancient Martian climate struggle to produce conditions that would allow liquid water on the Martian surface for many millions of years. One successful model proposes a thick carbon-dioxide atmosphere that also contains molecular hydrogen. How such an atmosphere would be generated and sustained, however, is controversial. The new study pins the puzzle to a particular place and time, with an on-the-ground check for carbonates in exactly the same sediments that hold the record of a lake about a billion years after the planet formed. For the past two decades, researchers have used spectrometers on Mars orbiters to search for carbonate that could have resulted from an early era of more abundant carbon dioxide.

They have found far less than anticipated. "It's been a mystery why there hasn't been much carbonate seen from orbit," Bristow said. "You could get out of the quandary by saying the carbonates may still be there, but we just can't see them from orbit because they're covered by dust, or buried, or we're not looking in the right place. The Curiosity results bring the paradox to a focus. This is the first time we've checked for carbonates on the ground in a rock we know formed from sediments deposited under water." The new analysis concludes that no more than a few tens of millibars of carbon dioxide could have been present when the lake existed, or it would have produced enough carbonate for Curiosity's CheMin to detect it. A millibar is one one-thousandth of sea-level air pressure on Earth. The current atmosphere of Mars is less than 10 millibars and about 95 percent carbon dioxide. "This analysis fits with many theoretical studies that the surface of Mars, even that long ago, was not warm enough for water to be liquid," said Robert Haberle, a Mars-climate scientist at NASA Ames and a co-author of the paper. "It's really a puzzle to me."

Researchers are evaluating multiple ideas for how to reconcile the dilemma. "Some think perhaps the lake wasn't an open body of liquid water. Maybe it was liquid covered with ice," Haberle said. "You could still get some sediments through to accumulate in the lakebed if the ice weren't too thick." A drawback to that explanation is that the rover team has sought and not found in Gale Crater evidence that would be expected from ice-covered lakes, such as large and deep cracks called ice wedges, or "dropstones," which become embedded in soft lakebed sediments when they penetrate thinning ice.

If the lakes were not frozen, the puzzle is made more challenging by the new analysis of what the lack of a carbonate detection by Curiosity implies about the ancient Martian atmosphere. "Curiosity's traverse through streambeds, deltas, and hundreds of vertical feet of mud deposited in ancient lakes calls out for a vigorous hydrological system supplying the water and sediment to create the rocks we're finding," said Curiosity Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "Carbon dioxide, mixed with other gases like hydrogen, has been the leading candidate for the warming influence needed for such a system.

This surprising result would seem to take it out of the running." When two lines of scientific evidence appear irreconcilable, the scene may be set for an advance in understanding why they are not. The Curiosity mission is continuing to investigate ancient environmental conditions on Mars. It is managed by JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Curiosity and other Mars science missions are a key part of NASA's Journey to Mars, building on decades of robotic exploration to send humans to the Red Planet in the 2030s.


LINK to the site and page;

Credits;
Bedrock at this site added to a puzzle about ancient Mars by indicating that a lake was present, but that little carbon dioxide was in the air to help keep a lake unfrozen. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

NASA Has Unveiled Awhile Ago, Interesting and Compelling Evidence For Life on Mars

Life on Mars

A special mission to the Red Planet has revealed the likely presence of a form of pond scum - the building blocks of life as we know it. NASA unveiled the results of the recent Opportunity and Spirit probes sent millions of miles through the solar system to discover signs of extraterrestrial life.

The results are so promising boffins have already planned a host of other missions to discover whether there is extraterrestrial life in the universe. The recent missions have gathered evidence of sulphates on Mars, a strong indication there is water on the planet and therefore life.

Previous missions to Mars have concluded there is probably water on the planet. But the NASA boffins said the recent missions have gone further than any others in proving there is life on Mars. They were particularly excited about the discovery of a sulphate called gypsum which, it has emerged recently, is found in large quantities among fossils in the Mediterranean.

Jack Farmer, researcher at the Arizona State University, in Tempe, Arizona, said he was "optimistic" there was - or had been - life on Mars. Another of the scientists Bill Schopf, researcher at the University of California in Los Angeles, added: "One, thanks to Opportunity and the rovers and orbital imaging it is clear that there are literally vast areas of Mars that are carpeted with various sorts of sulphates, including gypsum. "Two, it turns out on earth there just hasn't been hardly any work done at all to show whether gypsum ever includes within it preserved evidence of former life.

"The age doesn't matter. We just didn't know that fossils and organic matter and things like that were well preserved within gypsum. "So, three, it turns out that now we have made that first step we are going to find out how widespread it is in other sulphate deposits on earth.

"And those lines of evidence will then give us a way to justify going to Mars and looking at gypsum because it looks as though based on these findings that is going to turn out to be a really excellent place to find evidence of ancient life, regardless of age, if in fact it is there."

Five experts took part in last night's press conference to celebrate 50 years of astrobiology research. Dr Steve Squyres, of Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, said the only way of being sure there is life on Mars was to bring back a sample of Mars rock.

He also said that the detection of methane in the Martian atmosphere - as revealed exclusively by The Sun - raised the possibility that there was still life on Mars today. "Methane is a molecule that should go away very quickly. We need to send a mission to find out if the source is biological.

"We also need to send a mission to return samples from Mars. That would enable scientists to find out whether Mars might ever have harboured life. "If we are ever going to show if there was ever life on Mars, I think we're going to have to study samples back on Earth."

Almost 30 other NASA missions to discover life in space - including one to bring back rocks from Mars - have already been planned. There are also plans to visit Jupiter's moon Europa to explore its deep underground ocean and a moon of Saturn, Enceladus, which spouted ice volcanoes.

Long-term missions will also return to Saturn's biggest moon Titan, sending a balloon flying through its atmosphere and landing a probe in its surface lakes. Future missions would also visit comets. NASA scientists have been searching for extraterrestrial life on other planets for some time.

Last November the space organisation launched the Kepler space telescope to look for Earth-size planets in this galaxy. The telescope is on a three-and-a-half-year mission to find planets. NASA has so far been able to download data - but many believe there are aliens out there.

British physicist Stephen Hawking said this week aliens might be travelling through the cosmos right now - but he warned they might have evil intentions. Source: The Sun, UK newspaper.

Have signs of Martian life been obliterated by meteorite blasts?

Have signs of Martian life been obliterated by meteorite blasts? Extreme pressures during impact may wipe out organic compounds, study finds
Signs of life may be buried deep beneath the Martian surface, where organic compounds are protected from solar radiation and the harsh chemical processes above. To access these materials, scientists have analyzed rock samples that have been blasted to the surface by meteorite impacts – but so far, the results have been inconclusive. Now, researchers say the nature of these blasts may incorrectly imply the absence of life, wiping out any signs that may once have been there.

Martian Craters

Scientists have analyzed rock samples from Mars that have been blasted to the surface by meteorite impacts, but so far, the results have been inconclusive. Now, researchers say these blasts may wipe out any signs that may once have been there.

Mars

In a study published to the journal Scientific Reports, researchers from Imperial College London and the University of Edinburgh replicated meteorite blasts in the lab, focusing on those produced by meteorites roughly 10 meters in size. The team subjected different types of organic matter to extreme pressure and temperature in a piston cylinder device. Then, they used a pyrolysis-gas chromatography mass spectrometry to conduct a chemical analysis. This revealed that pressure from the impact destroyed long chain hydrocarbon-dominated matter, the organic compounds found in microbial and algal life.

But, the organic compound found in plant matter – dominated by aromatic hydrocarbons – was mostly resistant to the pressures, though it experienced some chemical changes. The researchers say these findings could help to guide future missions to the best locations or blast types on Mars to search for life.

The researchers say these findings could help to guide future missions in the search for life on Mars. Moving forward, they will investigate the effects of a wide range of temperatures and pressures to find the specific conditions that would allow organic material to survive.

HAS ALIEN LIFE GONE EXTINCT?
Researchers based at the Australian National University argue that life may well have emerged multiple times on other planets following the heavy bombardment of wet rocky worlds by asteroids. But they said almost all of this life would go rapidly go extinct unless it was able to evolve fast enough to regulate greenhouse gases and so maintain stable surface temperatures. While many planets could have potentially been habitable, and may have once teemed with microbial life, they argue, runaway heating or cooling would have left their surfaces inhospitable. The researchers say that while both Mars and Venus may once have been planets that could have hosted life four billion years ago, any life there failed to stabilise the environment. This resulted in Mars becoming a frigid desert while Venus became a boiling hothouse. Moving forward, the researchers will investigate the effects of a wide range of temperatures and pressures. Doing this would help them to find the specific conditions that would allow organic material to survive a blast. ‘The study is helping us to see that when organic matter is observed on Mars, no matter where, it must be considered whether the sample could have been affected by the pressures associated with blast impacts,’ says Dr. Wren Montgomery, co-author of the study from the Department of Earth Science and Engineering. ‘We still need to do more work to understand what factors may play an important role in protecting organic compounds from these blast impacts. ‘However, we think some of the factors may include the depths at which the rock records are buried and the angles at which meteorites hit the Martian surface'.

SEARCHING FOR ALIEN LIFE 
In the search for alien life, scientists have analyzed rock samples that have been blasted to the Martian surface by meteor impacts. It's thought that these rocks, which originate from beneath the surface, may contain organic compounds. Buried underground, the compounds would be protected from solar radiation and the harsh chemical processes above. But in the new study, researchers found that the meteorite blasts which carry the rocks to the surface may also destroy any evidence of life.

By CHEYENNE MACDONALD