Oppy sol 1435 Martian SOD animation: <...

Oppy sol 1435 Martian SOD animation:

Any one who has followed my posts since day one knows that I have obsessed over the organization of the soil -- and, in particular, what I have called the property of Self Organizing Dust.

The MI animation above illustrates the coherent movement of units of SOD in, perhaps, the presence of frost. Note that some units move this way -- some move that way -- so I don't think its "just" the wind moving individual grains.

The key observation ( in my mind ) is that the movement of each little clump of soil is cohenrent and independent.

One of my greatest disappointments in the Oppy and Spirit missions was the observation that over long periods of time ( weeks ) there is virtually NO changes in SOD. BUT over very brief periods the SOD, er, organizes in response to an energetic external event -- like RATing -- or even close examination by the MI.

It looks like the polar SOD behaves the same way.

I was profoundly disappointed that the SOD on the lander pad is virtually unchanged since hours after the energetic event ( landing ) that stirred it up.

So it looks like the scenario is SOD ( it it even exists ) organizes very slowly ( by Earth timelines )-- but energetic events breaks up the SOD and scatters independent components -- which very quickly find one another, organize -- and then again return to a very slow change process.

So it looks more and more like the internal property of SOD that causes "self organization" is more a simple intra-molecular force ( perhaps magnetic ) amoung otherwise uninteresting ( to me ) dust grains.

The larger, long range pattern of SOD seems to be circular patches -- which very few , except some proponents of life, seem capable of seeing.

The number of such SOD circles seems quite high at the Phoenix site, so I would guess that their number is a direct measure of the water content in the soil.

Water is a dipolar molecule. Couple that with ths SODs (magnetic?) binding force and perhaps some pretty patterns will result in "watery" soil.

Unless some interesting chemistry turns up I'm guessing the whos will not shout loud enough to be heard by Phoenix.

Ah well.

I think I'll rest for a while.