Hi HortVery nice pic at 51. But I don...

Hi Hort

Very nice pic at 51. But I don't fully agree with your analysis and only partly with your final conclusion.

Accepting that the sods appear to react quickly to external energetic forces and then settle down to a steady state conformation ultimately leading to the circular like patterns and chains we see at Meridiani and moreso at the Phoenix site. I think that there is no need to invoke only an intra-molecular force mediated or catalysed by the amount of water present for the "strange" behaviour of the sods. Yes, I think those abovementioned forces are significant but I don't think that "whos" are definitely excluded from this phenomenon, at least not yet.

Why could'nt there be some microbes assisting in binding the soil grains together? OK, OK, I know you'll tell me solar UV radiation at the surface, superoxides, etc., but I think that throughout the various arguments on life at the surface of Mars on this blog, there have been many arguments raised that there has been no definitive proof given that these agents will actually eliminate life that can adapt to extreme environments and that mechanisms exist for adapting to such conditions.

Indeed, some of the extreme movements seen in your meridiani animation above seem to be far too energetic to be caused by only the forces you mentioned.

There has to be something other than those forces to explain the cohesivity and yes, stickyness, of the soil phoenix has encountered. Microbial products could fill that role.

However, given that the TEGA instrument tests on the first (and may I say, flawed) sample have not yet been reported, but that UMSF experts say they have not returned any organics, your expectations for the "whos" remaining dumb seems reasonable.

I myself am not as confident as I was previously but anxiously await official results from TEGA and the other instruments.

The problem of course is that this mission is not geared to actually search for life although it could give several important pointers or clues as to if it existed or still exists. The megnet image that you highlighted earlier is a good example of the kind of problem that is faced. That partially fluffy wire shaped obect, is likely in my opinion to have somehow dropped from a part of the lander, but there is a possibility that it might be a martian product of biology.

We may never be able to resolve the problems. If the second TEGA sample does not work, through improper sampling (eg. no ice is again found by TEGA) do we conclude that there is really no ice there? Could it be that there are organic products there but TEGA did not sample them in the first experiment and may not be able to sample them in the second?

NOthing has been said so far of the AFM. Is it operational? Are we sure that the sampling process for preparing the AFM slides will give samples that can provide reasonable results when done?

Why cant the RA Camera take a close up of some of those intruiging circles in the soil? Why can't it peer into some of those holes in the soil just above the ice layer?

Forgive the incoherent post once more. I'm travelling on an assignment and I'm rushing to go and prepare some presentations for tomorrow.

May not be able to post much over the next week or so.

Winston