Opportunity finds object in rock

<i>Originally posted by Rudolf</i>
<br />Apparently, apostrophes are not legitimate characters for URLs on this MB. I replaced it with %27, and the entire link now works. -|Tom|-

It actually does look like a rotini pasta! Perhaps when Mar's parent planet exploded, some family eating a nice Italian dinner got slammed into their moon (Mars) and one of their pieces of pasta embedded itself in the rock, fossilizing over time.

But in all seriousnes, if Mars was the moon of an exploded, water-based planet, could the water that was once on Mars have all been the result of bombardment from the parent planet? Or could Mars have had water on it while it was a moon?

And either way, what are some explanations for what happened to the water?

Emanuel

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by emanuel</i>
<br />if Mars was the moon of an exploded, water-based planet, could the water that was once on Mars have all been the result of bombardment from the parent planet? Or could Mars have had water on it while it was a moon?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Nothing prevents Mars from having native water, but there is no evidence for it. OTOH, achondritic meteorites show evidence for air and water erosion and weathering. And those meteorites are apparently the remnants of "Body C", the planet co-orbiting with Mars until 3.2 million years ago. So most likely, we had a one-time massive water dump onto Mars from the Body C explosion, which produced a flood of unparalleled proportions. However, it all soaked into the soil or evaporated in much less than geological time, perhaps just a matter of months.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">And either way, what are some explanations for what happened to the water?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Liquid water is unstable for most of the surface of Mars. So there are only three possible destinations for the dumped water:
(1) Soaked deep into the soil, became ice, and was prevented from evaporating.
(2) Absorbed by the atmosphere as water vapor and freezes out every winter near the winter pole.
(3) Evaporation and escape into space. -|Tom|-

&gt; Nothing prevents Mars from having native water, but there is no evidence for it.

Thanks Tom.

Also, what are the chances that Spirit or Opportunity will collect data that could prove or disprove the the Planet C bombardment throry? Seems a long shot. I sure can't think of ways to test this simply by analyzing the rocks.

Emanuel

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by emanuel</i>
<br />I sure can't think of ways to test this simply by analyzing the rocks.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Instrumentation to date the rocks would be needed. We would then need data from several more sites to prove that the flat hemisphere is very old, whereas the cratered hemisphere is very young -- the opposite of what is presently believed. -|Tom|-

Tom,

I remember hearing you and Richard Hoagland talk on Coast to Coast AM about the spherules that the MER rovers have been finding, and that they might be fragments from a planetary explosion.

Would you please elaborate on this a bit? Data, predictions, etc.?