Dear Kevin,
thank you for an opportunity to explain my views and actions
Come now, let us reason together. Is. 1:18
Thank you for this opportunity for a reasoned debate. You have asked me, why, I as a scientist , I speak of the presence of ‘artifacts’ on Mars at Cydonia Mensa and Galaxias Chaos and why I have chosen Journal of Cosmology , a refereed online journal to publish my research instead of Science or some other longer established journal. Let me briefly summarize my reasoning in these matters:
First let us begin with what we agree on. The Principle of Mediocrity , which underlies all SETI, and has been a foundation of human science since the beginning of the scientific revolution. It says basically, that earth and human being are not “special” or miraculous, but part of a general physical system in the cosmos. The earth is not the center of the universe but merely part of it, the human race is on this planet not by some miracle but part of some process that could occur on any similar planet elsewhere in the universe. This means that gravity on the earths surface , causing apples to drop , also makes the Moon orbit the earth ect… This principle underlies SETI because it says that products of ET civilizations will be recognizable to us, be they radio signals, or large carved monuments like the Sphinx and the pyramids.
Based on Mediocity we would expect we are not alone in the universe, and that other civilizations should exist elsewhere .
We also know, based on good evidence, that the universe is approximately 13 billion years old, yet the earth is only 4.5 billion years old, and all of known or human history is but a tiny fraction of the earth’s history ~ 200, 000 years. So we would expect that other civilizations are far older than we are in the cosmos, and, like us, have achieved high technology and even space travel.
This leads to Fermi’s Paradox: we would expect the universe to be full of vibrant and noisy civilizations, yet it is silent. This is especially true if we expected , under Mediocrity, for other cultures to behave like we do, and all other biology on this planet: expanding aggressively into new living spaces , other planets and solar systems, and being noisy while doing it. This is just a naïve view perhaps, radio broadcasts may be only a feature of civilizations for a brief period in their development for instance, but other signs should replace them. But instead, we have a great silence and sense of loneliness in the cosmos.
Now we pass to Mars . Mars is the first earthlike planet we can explore in the cosmos. We have strong evidence that Mars had life at its beginnings ( the Mars meteorites) and that life continued , perhaps even until the Vikings landed and tested the soil for life.
We also know that Mars used to have rivers and an ocean, meaning it had earthlike atmospheric temperatures and pressures. We know this can occur via Venus-like persistent greenhouse effect. We also know the old ocean bed ( I was the first to formally hypothesize an ocean on the northern plains of Mars , check Wikipedia “Mars ocean hypothesis” reference #1) This ocean means Mars could not only have life but a biosphere. Mars is red, indicating it had an oxygen rich atmosphere in the past. Look at pictures of Earth’s deserts from space , they are also bright red. This is due in both cases to hematite, iron in ferric oxidation state. On earth, the soil is red because of oxygen in the atmosphere, Sagan proposed the same process on Mars in the past. Mars is not just oxidized on the surface, exposed sediments in the Vallis Marineris go down 8km deep and are also bright red, indicating they were laid down in a oxidizing atmosphere. The layers in the earth’s grand canyon are only 1 kilometer thick or less and are also bright red. So Mars had an ocean and rivers , life , and probably oxygen. The only question is how long did it have these things? Before it became like it is now, cold and barren.
So we have established the argument that earth and humanity are “mediocre”, normal in the universe. We have also established the argument , with solid evidence, that Mars was like earth for some period.
The question is how long? If Mars was like earth for only a billion years or less, then we would expect nothing more than hardy bacteria on Mars now, since based on earth’s “mediocre” history, it took 4.5 billion years of liquid water conditions and life to produce advanced life forms. However, if Mars was like earth for billions of years, perhaps 4 billion, then all bets are off. Advanced life on earth appeared suddenly, 0.5 billion years ago , in the “pre-Cambrian explosion” and evolved quickly. We do not know what triggered the Precambrian explosion. So we do not understand what controls the evolutionary clock, impacts, supernova radiation increasing rates of mutation? But let us say, for the sake of argument, that it takes billions of years of life under earthlike conditions to allow advanced life forms to appear. So let us say 3billion or even 4billion.
Now how long did Mars ocean persist, and with it , earthlike conditions? 1 billion years or 4 billion? On this number, this whole debate turns. Because if there was 3-4 billion years and Mars is barren and cold now , we would expect, under Mediocrity to find remains of advanced life forms, perhaps even a dead civilization. However, if Mars had an ocean only for 1 billion years, the other extreme, we would expect only bacteria on Mars , and little of that under present conditions.
The answer is the center of debate in the Mars science community. Mars has a split personality, the Mars Dichotomy, northern regions are young with few craters, the southern highlands are very old. This reflected in the ages of the Mars meteorites, they fall in two groups, one group including ALH84001 is very old 4.5 billion years old. The other group is very young 1billion years to 0.2 billion with most of them very young. They all show signs of exposure to liquid water. This indicates the north of Mars is very young. However, the mainstream view, based on crater counting, is that the north is billions of years old and the south is 4.5 billion. The conflict between Mars meteorite people , who measure ages of rock by radioisotopes and get young ages 0.5 billion years average for the Northern plains, and the crater counters , who estimate 2-3 Billion is called the Mars Age Paradox- how can you get young meteorites from a old planet? Willim Nyquist has published extensively on this paradox. The answer to the paradox is that the crater counters are assuming rates of cratering derived from the Moon, but Mars is next to the asteroid belt. If you allow 4x Lunar cratering rates on Mars then then the Northern Plains are young 0.5 billion years. The fact that we have far more Mars meteorites in terms of numbers and mass, than Lunar meteorites (meteroites from the Moon) argues on the face of it that Mars cratering rate must be many times that of the Moon So that is where the debate in the “Age Paradox” rests at this point. Myself and several others are arguing for the cratering rate to be revised upwards so the Mars surface ages will agree with the radiometric ages . But it is a debate we are having a big meeting next year about it and I am invited! So the Mars age debate boils down to one number , the relative cratering rate between Mars and the Moon ( where we got rocks from areas of known crater counts) .
So the duration of the ocean, how long life could evolve on Mars , everything boils down to one number, the relative cratering rate between Mars and the Moon. If its 1xlunar then Mars was like the Moon for most of its history, if its 4xLunar, the other extreme, then Mars was like earth for most of its history, with all that implies for possible evolution on Mars .
Mars science is like all the sciences, a human activity subject to orthodoxies, passions, and personalities. It is also very conservative, like all the sciences, changing its mainstream views only after long consideration of the data and debates over it. It is especially conservative because Mars is the frontline of the ET life debate. Right now, the mainstream is fixed on 1-2 x Lunar cratering rates on Mars . However, the meteorite ages are solid and argue for 4xlunar or above. So we have a debate. People get quite passionate in these debates and even call each other “fruit-bats” occasionally.
Now if Mars surface is young, life the Mars metorites, then the Mars ocean and all that it implies lasted most of Mars history 4 billion years. So Mars was earthlike for that long , approximately. Mars climate then changed to what it is now catastrophically. We know of all sorts of catastrophes that could do this, we see evidence of them from earth’s history.
However, if Mars was Earthlike for 4 billion years , the period that agrees with average young meteorite ages, then we can preclude nothing on Mars as far what evolution produced.
Therefore, under 4xLunar and Mediocrity, if I see things on Mars that look like eroded archeology, I am no different than a scientist who finds what he thinks are microfossils in Mars meteorites or a scientist who says South America and Africa fit together, the origin of plate tectonics.
Now why did I publish in Journal of Cosmology? Because they accept papers of this type and other journals do not. Also, being online , they referee and publish quickly, meaning my data and arguments are available to the scientific community so they can read them- if they choose to. Another more respected journal I submitted this to, sat on it for close to a year, said nothing, then rejected it with a terse note.
So this is part of the Second Copernican Revolution, the removal of earth from the center of the biological universe. No revolution is a tea party, though they sometimes begin with tea parties.
Thank you Narad for noting my GEM unification theory. This theory has no bearing on whether i am correct about Mars, however, my simple expression for “G” the newton Gravitation constant, first published in 1987, remains the only simple and accurate expression in the literature and is good to a part per thousand- within experimental error , since the experimental measurements are so difficult.
Thanks to you all for a opportunity to engage in reasoned and informed debate. I urge you all to search the web and verify my statements concerning the Mars Meteorite Age debate, which is central to this whole Mars matter.
Gravity, UFOs, & Mars Dr. John Brandenburg
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks