62 replies to this topic

[niner]

You're implying that NASA thinks the team should have wasted time turning over a funny-shaped rock.  That wouldn't be doing science, it would just be pacifying Earthbound conspiracy theorists.

[Kalliste]

@Turnbuckle

Actually I don't have much respect for NASA. I have respect for what they used to be about 40 years back in time. But ever since they decided to hand eventual Earth-Luna space domination to China and Russia and India I have been growing tired of them.

Edited by Cosmicalstorm, 23 September 2014 - 07:43 PM.

[niner]

Actually I don't have much respect for NASA. I have respect for what they used to be about 40 years back in time. But ever since they decided to hand eventual Earth-Luna space domination to China and Russia and India I have been growing tired of them.

 

I don't think that was NASA's idea.  That was a funding priority that came from Congress, reflecting the fact that the general public isn't all that interested in space anymore.

[Kalliste]

 

Actually I don't have much respect for NASA. I have respect for what they used to be about 40 years back in time. But ever since they decided to hand eventual Earth-Luna space domination to China and Russia and India I have been growing tired of them.

 

I don't think that was NASA's idea.  That was a funding priority that came from Congress, reflecting the fact that the general public isn't all that interested in space anymore.

 

 

Yes that is correct, I assume things would have turned out rather different if NASA switched budgets with the military. As it is they are a shadow of what they used to be and I don't feel any particular awe for their existence anymore. These days I guess all the smart people are busy making google a true AI or rigging the finance market with nanosecond trading software.

[Danail Bulgaria]

That was interesting. What is a "nanosecond trading software"?

[Kalliste]

Google it

http://www.datacente...ce-for-traders/

 

[Turnbuckle]

You're implying that NASA thinks the team should have wasted time turning over a funny-shaped rock.  

 

Yep. They should investigate every anomaly. They spent a lot of time investigating a shiny object that turned out to be part of the rover itself, so they can certainly turn over a few rocks. Otherwise they should rename their rover Incuriosity.

[niner]

 

You're implying that NASA thinks the team should have wasted time turning over a funny-shaped rock.  

 

Yep. They should investigate every anomaly. They spent a lot of time investigating a shiny object that turned out to be part of the rover itself, so they can certainly turn over a few rocks. Otherwise they should rename their rover Incuriosity.

 

Is that what NASA thinks, or is that what you think?   I think that real anomalies are probably worth a closer look, but it doesn't sound like they thought this funny-looking rock was a true anomaly.  They may have higher resolution data, or views from different angles that paint a very different picture.  We're seeing a single frame in fairly low resolution that was selected on the basis of being click-bait.

[sthira]

We're seeing a single frame in fairly low resolution that was selected on the basis of being click-bait.

Right, and fossil bone is porous and in high rez we would see the internal bone structure -- the canals and webbed structures of biology. That's a cool Martian rock, but that ain't no bone haha...

[Luminosity]

You can see the shape which no rock I've ever seen as had.   Could someone post a link to another rock that looks like that? 

Edited by Luminosity, 25 September 2014 - 02:12 AM.

[The Brain]

You could always google "bones that look like rocks" couldn't you?

Or are you trying to make a point


Perhaps google Moeraki Boulders. People used to think they were fossilised dinosaur eggs because they couldn't believe that rocks could be that shape.

Many other astounding shapes that rocks and rock formations form seem unbelievable too to many people seeing them for the first time.

Edited by The Brain, 25 September 2014 - 03:08 AM.

[Luminosity]

You could always google "bones that look like rocks" couldn't you?

 

You mean rocks that look like bones?

 

Yes, there are some amazing rocks out there but none of them really look like a leg bone.  So until you or someone else posts a link to one, I think it makes sense to assume that the bone on Mars is what it looks like.  

 

Go ahead and post a link to a rock that looks like a leg bone.  I'm waiting.  

[The Brain]

You're not important enough for me to do what you can do yourself, nor is your sleazy trolling way of inferring that your "leg bone" gains credibility until someone does post a link very amusing.

You're a conspiracy troll, a bad one at that, offering no content to support your claims.

[Kalliste]

Yeah this is nonsense, Why would they not want to find a bone on Mars? If there were Marsosaurus Rex to be found we would be burying NASA in funding right away. And if the Illuminati-Jew-Lizard council did not want us to know about their secret Mars-Dinosaur-Lair then why the hell would they release the image of it anyway? Did they release it so that conspiracy guys could find it and feel smug about it?

[Turnbuckle]

 

 

Go ahead and post a link to a rock that looks like a leg bone.  I'm waiting.  

 

 

 

Here is one, in the upper right hand quadrant, though in full resolution you see a third dimension in the shadow that doesn't look bone-like. Also, you'd expect that any weathering process that could produces two balls on a stalk could produce more than two balls. Like this one in the upper left hand quadrant. 

 

I'd expect to find far more sea shells than bones, and here is a picture that appears to show two broken shells of the same type. They're hard to find so I've enlarged them below. One in the lower left quadrant is pointed toward the viewer, and the other in the upper right hand quadrant is in profile.

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[sthira]

You can see the shape which no rock I've ever seen as had. Could someone post a link to another rock that looks like that?

Hmm, I wonder if Curiosity actually did discover a Martian bone, would you then say NASA planted an earth bone on Mars as a government publicity stunt?

[The Brain]

Yeah, not happy unless there's a conspiracy in it somewhere.

Lol

[Kalliste]

 

 

 

Go ahead and post a link to a rock that looks like a leg bone.  I'm waiting.  

 

 

 

Here is one, in the upper right hand quadrant, though in full resolution you see a third dimension in the shadow that doesn't look bone-like. Also, you'd expect that any weathering process that could produces two balls on a stalk could produce more than two balls. Like this one in the upper left hand quadrant. 

 

I'd expect to find far more sea shells than bones, and here is a picture that appears to show two broken shells of the same type. They're hard to find so I've enlarged them below. One in the lower left quadrant is pointed toward the viewer, and the other in the upper right hand quadrant is in profile.

 

 

So we have two theories:

1.  NASA continuously release pictures that prove that Mars was once a planet full of life, hell they even had their own Cambrian explosion. The scientists on the team are too stupid to realize it, or they are engaging in a massive conspiracy that makes no sense because why the fuck release evidence of your conspiracy to the public?

2. It's just rocks,

 

Using human intuition that is evolved to grasp what happens on a wet and slimy world like Earth to figure out what happens on another planet with completely different soil and geological activity than Earth is going to lead to this kind of thing.

[Turnbuckle]

Conspiracy, Cosmicalstorm? WTF are you talking about? I never said anything about conspiracy.

[mikeinnaples]

There is a traffic light on Mars too.

 

 

...and some Martian child forgot to put their ball away.

 

[Turnbuckle]

Looking through hundreds of raw pics at the JPL site, I found this one, which looks like a water leak--

 

 

 

 

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[Kalliste]

I would be a less surprised by water on Mars. But what is going on here Turnbuckle, I did not mean to insult you with the conspiracy word, but what is this rover team doing? They spent a million man hours and billions of dollars putting this together and now they are being outsmarted by kids on facebook in terms of actually looking at the pictures their probe is sending back to us over millions of kilometers. Are they crazy? On drugs? Pressured from speaking out by the Marlboro-man from X-files?

[Turnbuckle]

I would be a less surprised by water on Mars. But what is going on here Turnbuckle, I did not mean to insult you with the conspiracy word, but what is this rover team doing? They spent a million man hours and billions of dollars putting this together and now they are being outsmarted by kids on facebook in terms of actually looking at the pictures their probe is sending back to us over millions of kilometers. Are they crazy? On drugs? Pressured from speaking out by the Marlboro-man from X-files?

 

Yesterday I went through several thousand photos from the past hundred days, and it's remarkable how few rocks look like anything at all. And those that were interesting in the thumbnails looked exactly like rocks when I pulled up the full images. So I suspect this is a matter of negative expectations combined with more than two years of negative results. I worked in industrial research for decades so I've seen the syndrome. And it shows in their breezy and condescending statement about the "bone"--

 

No bones about it! Seen by Mars rover Curiosity using its MastCam, this Mars rock may look like a femur thigh bone. Mission science team members think its shape is likely sculpted by erosion, either wind or water.

 

If life ever existed on Mars, scientists expect that it would be small simple life forms called microbes. Mars likely never had enough oxygen in its atmosphere and elsewhere to support more complex organisms. Thus, large fossils are not likely.

 

http://mars.jpl.nasa...s/?ImageID=6538

 

 

They said elsewhere that it's not a femur because it's not straight. However, you can find femurs on earth that are not straight, so that's not an argument. As for the statement that there was never enough oxygen to support animal life, there was obviously enough to oxidize the surface and turn it orange, so that's not very convincing either. In fact, there is evidence that Mars had an oxygen rich atmosphere long before Earth did--

 

 

Differences between martian meteorites and rocks examined by a NASA rover can be explained if Mars had an oxygen-rich atmosphere 4000 million years ago – well before the rise of atmospheric oxygen on Earth 2500m years ago. 

 

http://www.astrobio....lion-years-ago/

 

 

 

That said, I don't believe this particular rock has a biological origin and I'd expect fossils to be extremely rare. Nevertheless, I would turn over every funny looking rock looking for them. Beyond looking for fossils, macroscopic life might still exist. If it did, it would be found in one of these water seeps, like the one I posted above. For instance, in this photograph--

 

http://mars.jpl.nasa...248E01_DXXX.jpg

 

There is a presently dry (or damp) seep at the far left . If you enlarge it, next to the darkest shadow halfway down the seep there is something yellow with a cherry red spot. It's impossible to say what it is, but the colors are unusual. There's also a oval rock directly above it in the seep channel that appears to be blocking it completely, but there is no evidence water has flowed around it. This rock appears to have scales. These are most likely artifacts of the visual system that would be cleared up with a closer inspection, but I wouldn't expect NASA to waste their time getting closer when they claim there was never anything but "simple life forms called microbes."

 

 

 

Edited by Turnbuckle, 26 September 2014 - 01:09 PM.

[niner]

These "water seeps" are nothing more than shadows.  If there was liquid water on the surface, the guys running this mission would be VERY interested in it.

[Turnbuckle]

These "water seeps" are nothing more than shadows.  If there was liquid water on the surface, the guys running this mission would be VERY interested in it.

 

 

NASA is well aware of them and calls them "recurring slope lineae," which has been seen in many places from orbit. Water seepage, they admit, is the most likely cause of it. And given the presence of sufficient liquid water, plant life would seem almost inevitable. Plants need water, sunlight, and CO2. There's plenty of sunlight and Mars has 15 times the CO2 pressure of Earth.

Edited by Turnbuckle, 26 September 2014 - 02:54 PM.

[niner]

 

These "water seeps" are nothing more than shadows.  If there was liquid water on the surface, the guys running this mission would be VERY interested in it.

 

 

NASA is well aware of them and calls them "recurring slope lineae," which has been seen in many places from orbit. Water seepage, they admit, is the most likely cause of it. And given the presence of sufficient liquid water, plant life would seem almost inevitable. Plants need water, sunlight, and CO2. There's plenty of sunlight and Mars has 15 times the CO2 pressure of Earth.

 

Something tells me that the green stuff in that picture is not algae.  Does NASA actually think that there is liquid water on the surface of Mars?  Plants also need oxygen to survive.  There's also the issue of low barometric pressure.  That may or may not be a problem- at least people are thinking about it.

[Turnbuckle]

 

 

These "water seeps" are nothing more than shadows.  If there was liquid water on the surface, the guys running this mission would be VERY interested in it.

 

 

NASA is well aware of them and calls them "recurring slope lineae," which has been seen in many places from orbit. Water seepage, they admit, is the most likely cause of it. And given the presence of sufficient liquid water, plant life would seem almost inevitable. Plants need water, sunlight, and CO2. There's plenty of sunlight and Mars has 15 times the CO2 pressure of Earth.

 

Something tells me that the green stuff in that picture is not algae.  Does NASA actually think that there is liquid water on the surface of Mars?  Plants also need oxygen to survive.  There's also the issue of low barometric pressure.  That may or may not be a problem- at least people are thinking about it.

 

 

If it's flowing it must be liquid, right? But this is underground water seeping out. It doesn't stay long. That wasn't always the case as there used to be oceans, now dried up. There are still what appears to be frozen lakes, and maybe unfrozen lakes, though NASA is strangely silent about these pictures. 

 

As for plants needing oxygen, I suspect that over billions of years, plants would adapt. Obviously plants make oxygen in their leaves, so the problem is with the roots getting it. Some plants that grow in water make do with the low oxygen levels in the roots by transporting oxygen down to them. As Jeff Goldblum says in Jurassic Park, life will find a way. 

Edited by Turnbuckle, 26 September 2014 - 08:17 PM.

[Luminosity]

Thanks Turnbuckle for your contributions.  The apparent water seepage looks the most compelling.  I hope you don't mind if I put up a thread or blog post about that.  Keep your own copies of that picture because it could go missing.  

 

My challenge to the skeptic community to post a picture of a rock that looks like a bone is for earth rocks because those could be definitively checked out to see if they are bones or rocks.   Insulting me just highlights their failure to present any evidence for their unproven theory the rocks can look so much like bones.  The challenge remains unfilled.  

 

Cosmicalstorm earlier asked why NASA didn't use the bone to up their budget.  NASA follows orders from above to hide or obscure certain things.  It's not up to them.  They probably overlooked the bone or there's a leaker, or there can be a slow release of the truth about space.  Simple human error is the most likely explanation.  The government makes mistakes all the time, including in their cover ups/covert ops.  

 

As for sthira's comment that I would say NASA put the bone on Mars as a publicity stunt.  I never said anything about that nor would I be likely to.  You're attributing comments and sentiments to me that I've never had.  What happened to you?

 

There are some very poor arguments on the skeptic side, and lot of personal insults, last resort of those with no evidence. Anyone on the clock here?

 

Do I understand correctly that the skeptics central argument is that the government never lies or makes mistakes?

 

That's your argument?

 

 

 

 

Edited by Luminosity, 28 September 2014 - 04:24 AM.

[The Brain]

No, that's you saying what their argument is, you say they have no evidence yet you supply none of your own, just latch onto other posters who offer more conspiratorial claims.

You've made yourself look like a clown many times here. You seem to think annoying rational thinking people with silly troll games is fun. I think watching desperate trolls seeking attention for themselves is fun.

What's wrong with you that you need this in your life. Are you still hurting from finding out the Tooth Fairy and Santa aren't real. The Easter Bunny didn't leave you any eggs one year or maybe your invisible friend dumped you for another child.

I hope you find the thing in life that fills that void and calms your passive aggressive nature. It must be a lot of work on your part.

Another unpaid opinion.


You're welcome...

[Kalliste]

I'm going to be careful following your advice in the future Luminosity. This conspiracy stuff is alarming.