Mystery Mars haze baffles scientists [Archive] - The Project Avalon Community Forum

Cidersomerset

17th February 2015, 22:19

http://static.bbci.co.uk/frameworks/barlesque/2.83.4/desktop/3.5/img/blq-blocks_grey_alpha.png

16 February 2015 Last updated at 16:00

Mystery Mars haze baffles scientistsRebecca Morelle
By Rebecca Morelle

Science Correspondent, BBC News

Mars plume The plume appeared twice in 2012, and stretched for 1,000km
Continue reading the main story
Related Stories
Methane 'belches' detected on Mars
Early Mars atmosphere 'oxygen-rich'
Rover traces loss of Martian air

A mysterious haze high above Mars has left scientists scratching their heads.

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/81043000/jpg/_81043906_mars_cloud.jpg
The vast plume was initially spotted by amateur astronomers in 2012, and appeared
twice before vanishing.

Scientists have now analysed the images and say that say the formation, stretching for
more than 1,000km, is larger than any seen before.Writing in the journal Nature, the
researchers believe the plume could be a large cloud or an exceptionally bright aurora.
However, they are unsure how these could have formed in the thin upper reaches of the
Martian atmosphere.

“
Start Quote
To begin with, I thought there was a problem with the telescope or camera”
End Quote
Damian Peach

Astronomer

"It raises more questions than answers," said Antonio Garcia Munoz, a planetary
scientist from the European Space Agency.Around the world, a network of amateur
astronomers keep their telescopes trained on the Red Planet. They first spotted the
strange plume in March 2012 above Mars' southern hemisphere.Damian Peach was
one of the first stargazers to capture images of the phenomenon. He told BBC
News: "I noticed this projection sticking out of the side of the planet. To begin with,
I thought there was a problem with the telescope or camera.

"But as I checked more of the images, I realised it was a real feature - and it was quite
a surprise."

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/81043000/jpg/_81043061_marscloud_dp.jpg

Mars plumes Damian Peach was one of the first astronomers to image the plume The
vast, bright haze lasted for about 10 days. A month later, it reappeared for the same
length of time. But it has not been seen since.An international team of scientists has
now confirmed the finding, but they are struggling to find an explanation.

“
Start Quote
We know in this region on Mars, there have been auroras reported before”
End Quote
Dr Garcia Munoz

European Space Agency

One theory is that the plume is a cloud of carbon dioxide or water particles.

"We know there are clouds on Mars, but clouds, up to this point, have been observed up
to an altitude of 100km," Dr Garcia Munoz said.

"And we are reporting a plume at 200km, so it is significantly different. At 200km, we
shouldn't see any clouds, the atmosphere is too thin - so the fact we see it for 20 days in total is quite surprising."

Another explanation is that this is a Martian version of the northern or southern lights.

Dr Garcia Munoz explained: "We know in this region on Mars, there have been auroras
reported before. But the intensities we are reporting are much much higher than any
auroras seen before on Mars or on Earth.

"It would be 1,000 times stronger than the strongest aurora, and it is difficult to come
to terms that Mars has such an intense aurora."

If either of these theories are right, he said, it would mean our understanding of Mars'
upper atmosphere is wrong. He hopes that by publishing the paper, other scientists
might also come up with explanations. If they cannot, astronomers will have to wait for
the plumes to return. Close-up observations from telescopes or the spacecraft that are
currently in orbit around the Red Planet could help to solve this Martian mystery.

Follow Rebecca on Twitter

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-31491805

======================================================

OCdlyfEn9co

Published on 16 Feb 2015

http://www.undergroundworldnews.com

Tesla_WTC_Solution

18th February 2015, 05:04

Thank you for posting this.

I wonder if Jules Verne would have had something to say about methane rich worlds and the so called "Verneshot" of CT lore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verneshot

A verneshot (named after French author Jules Verne) is a hypothetical volcanic eruption event caused by the buildup of gas deep underneath a craton. Such an event may be forceful enough to launch an extreme amount of material from the crust and mantle into a sub-orbital trajectory.

Verneshots have been proposed as a causal mechanism explaining the statistically unlikely contemporaneous occurrence of continental flood basalts, mass extinctions, and "impact signals" (such as planar deformation features, shocked quartz, and iridium anomalies) traditionally considered definitive evidence of hypervelocity impact events.[1]

The verneshot theory suggests that mantle plumes may cause heating and the buildup of carbon dioxide gas underneath continental lithosphere. If continental rifting occurs above this location, an explosive release of the built up gas may occur, potentially sending out a column of crust and mantle into a globally dispersive, super-stratospheric trajectory. It is unclear whether such a column could stay coherent through this process, or whether the force of this process would result in it shattering into much smaller pieces before impacting. The pipe through which the magma and gas had travelled would collapse during this process, sending a shockwave at hypersonic velocity that would deform the surrounding craton.

A verneshot event is likely to be related to nearby continental flood basalt events, which may occur before, during or after the verneshot event. This may help in searching for evidence for the results of verneshot events; however, it is also quite probable that most of such evidence will be buried underneath the basalt flows, making investigation difficult. J. Phipps Morgan and others have suggested that subcircular Bouguer gravity anomalies recognized beneath the Deccan Traps may indicate the presence of verneshot pipes related to the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event.[1]

If the Deccan Traps were the location of a verneshot event at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary, the strong iridium spike at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary could be explained by the iridium-rich nature in volatiles of the Reunion mantle plume, which is currently beneath Piton de la Fournaise, but during the end Cretaceous was located beneath India in the area of the Deccan Traps; the verneshot event could potentially distribute the iridium globally.[1]

Less dramatic rock eruptions were documented in 2003 after a 1999 earthquake in central Taiwan.[2]

Smaller scale verneshot events were proposed by Phipps Morgan and others to be a possible causal mechanism for the intrusion of kimberlite pipes, which propagate along lines of crustal weakness produced by an earlier larger verneshot event.

The site of the 1908 Tunguska event is proposed as a possible location of a recent micro-verneshot or kimberlite event. The site of ground zero in Tunguska is located within the Siberian traps, a large igneous province, formed at the Permo-Triassic boundary and, interestingly, recent work has indicated a circular depression underlying the traps, a direct prediction of the verneshot model.[1][3] In the verneshot model, the cratonic crust beneath this region would remain as a point of weakness, allowing the intrusion of a kimberlite pipe or, alternatively, a micro-verneshot, degassing from intrusion, resulted in an outpouring of volcanic gas which was then ignited. However the theory is controversial and is simply stated as a possible example.

The micro-verneshot model does not require the ejection of crustal material—only intrusion at depth.

In 1865 Jules Verne's novel From the Earth to the Moon introduced the concept of a ballistic projectile escaping the Earth's gravity, from which Phipps Morgan and others derived the name "Verneshot" in their paper theorizing a connection between extinction events and cratonic gas ejection. This was in the projectile-naming tradition of John Hunter, whose 47 m expanding hydrogen gun, SHARP, is only a precursor to the "Jules Verne Launcher" with a 3,500 m barrel length, which was designed in the early 1990s[4] for first-stage satellite launch.

http://i.imgur.com/nER5mS9.jpg

see also

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enceladus

Enceladus is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn. It was discovered in 1789 by William Herschel,[1][13][14] but little was known about Enceladus until the two Voyager spacecraft passed near it in the early 1980s.[15] The Voyagers showed that the diameter of Enceladus is only 500 kilometers (310 mi),[3] about a tenth of that of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, and that it reflects almost all the sunlight that strikes it. Enceladus has a wide range of surfaces ranging from old, heavily cratered regions to young, tectonically deformed terrains that formed as recently as 100 million years ago, despite its small size.

In 2005, the Cassini spacecraft started multiple close flybys of Enceladus, revealing its surface and environment in greater detail. In particular, Cassini discovered a water-rich plume venting from Enceladus's south polar region. Cryovolcanoes near the south pole shoot geyser-like jets of water vapor, other volatiles, and solid material including sodium chloride crystals and ice particles into space, totaling approximately 200 kilograms (440 lb) per second.[15][16][17] Over 100 geysers have been identified.[18] Some of the water vapor falls back as "snow" and the rest escapes, which supplies most of[citation needed] the material making up Saturn's E ring.[19]

These observations, along with the finding of escaping internal heat and very few (if any) impact craters in the south polar region, show that Enceladus is geologically active today. Moons in the extensive satellite systems of gas giants often become trapped in orbital resonances that lead to forced libration or orbital eccentricity. Enceladus is in such a resonance with Saturn's fourth largest moon, Dione. Enceladus's proximity to Saturn leads to tidal heating of its interior, offering a possible explanation for the activity. In 2014, NASA reported that evidence for a large south polar subsurface ocean of liquid water within Enceladus with a thickness of around 10 km had been found by Cassini.[20][21][22]

if Mars has a weak atmosphere then we cannot know the true impact of solar radiation and other such things, who the heck knows

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enceladus#Cryovolcanism

cryovolcanism, where water and other volatiles are the materials erupted instead of silicate rock, has been discovered on Enceladus. The first Cassini sighting of a plume of icy particles above Enceladus's south pole came from the Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) images taken in January and February 2005,[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryovolcano

A cryovolcano (colloquially known as an ice volcano) is a volcano that erupts volatiles such as water, ammonia or methane, instead of molten rock.[1] Collectively referred to as cryomagma or ice-volcanic melt,[1] these substances are usually liquids and form plumes, but can also be in vapour form. After eruption, cryomagma condenses to a solid form when exposed to the very low surrounding temperature. Cryovolcanoes form on icy moons, and possibly on other low-temperature astronomical objects (e.g., Kuiper belt objects).

The energy required to melt ices and produce cryovolcanoes usually comes from tidal friction. It has also been suggested that translucent deposits of frozen materials could create a sub-surface greenhouse effect that would accumulate the required heat.

Signs of past warming of the Kuiper belt object Quaoar[2] have led scientists to speculate that it exhibited cryovolcanism in the past. Radioactive decay could provide the energy necessary for such activity, as cryovolcanoes can emit water mixed with ammonia, which would melt at 180 K (−95 °C) and create an extremely cold liquid that would flow out of the volcano.

can't NASA read its own wiki. :twitch:

:bathbaby:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1001721302305

Astrophysics and Space Science
09-1998, Volume 259, Issue 4, pp 427-432
An Interpretation of the Non-Tidal Secular Variation in the Earth Rotation: the Interaction Between the Solar Wind and the Earth's Magnetosphere
Zhennian Gu

Abstract
The long period variation of the earth rotation is generally explained by the tidal friction. The tidal friction, however, is not the only source to influence the earth rotation in long term. In this paper, by means of the interaction between the solar wind and the magnetosphere of the earth, the additional magnetic pressure will exist in the magnetic tail due to the crowding and sparseness of the magnetic lines in the consideration of the earth rotation, which could be considered as a source of effecting the long term variation of the earth rotation. It is shown in this paper that this mechanism can produce angular deceleration of the Earth rotation in the magnitude of ω = −1.7 × 10-22 s-2. This result might be a prompt to search for other sources in the secular variation of the rate of the Earth rotation variation further in order to regulate the observed result with the theoretical one.
This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.

http://wmbriggs.com/post/6114/

Soon & Briggs: Sunspots do impact climate
SEPTEMBER 7, 2012 / BRIGGS / 12 COMMENTS
Had you thought I had forgotten about the doom that awaits us once global warming strikes (it’s on it’s way!)? I had not. Today’s post is at the Washington Times:

SOON AND BRIGGS: Global-warming fanatics take note
Sunspots do impact climate

Scientists have been studying solar influences on the climate for more than 5,000 years.

Chinese imperial astronomers kept detailed sunspot records. They noticed that more sunspots meant warmer weather. In 1801, the celebrated astronomer William Herschel (discoverer of the planet Uranus) observed that when there were fewer spots, the price of wheat soared. He surmised that less light and heat from the sun resulted in reduced harvests.