Life on Mars

In the nineteenth century it was suggested by astronomers that a "wave of darkening" spread from the north pole of Mars in the Martian spring. The was speculated to be an awakening of dormant life of some kind as water spread towards the south as a Martian ice cap melted.

The Martian ice cap has been found to contain water ice but the majority of observers say that Mars is barren of life and bombarded with strong UV radiation.

Dr Levin has found that some green object exist on Mars by considering light received from the Viking's simple camera.

A recent photograph of the Martian surface taken by another Martian Lander shows a rock strewn field with mostly red rocks. On these rocks on one side a different coloured region is visible on all the rocks.

Here above is an adjusted image. Please take the annotation with a pinch of salt, it is meant as a speculation.

The Martian organism may resemble blue-green algae. These were one of the earliest life forms on Earth. It is possible also that life on Earth was brought here from Mars by a meteorite originating from Mars after a bigger object fell on Mars knocking a bit of Mars into space. (This would mean that life on Earth and Life on Mars have a common ancestor.

The amount of Iron Oxide on Mars indicates that Mars has an oxidising atmosphere, but with a very low partial pressure of Oxygen. It is likely that Mars and Earth originally had reducing atmospheres.

That is what the Geology of Earth indicates and when Stromatolites made the Earth's Atmosphere oxidising then Ferrous Iron and Iron Metal in the rocks on Earth was oxidised to red iron oxide. This appears to have happened on Mars also.

There may be very slow living animals grazing on the Martian plant life also. (They appear to be limpets or slugs of a pink or magenta colour.

These is pure speculation on my part and is based only on the evidence given above, I have no special knowledge.

Recently (2002) the Candor area has been photographed by an orbiter and the colour photograph shows areas that look green. I isolated the a green area to eliminate the contrast effect and it still looked green. Using Photoshop it measured 41 R 51 G 16 B. Adjacent red areas had similar B and G but R was up to 115. (looks like the Martian equivalent of a tropical rainforest. If you look at the Earth from an orbiter the land masses are brown with greener areas similar to Mars.

Showing Detail from White Square marked area. This is where the measurements were taken. I cant tell which way the relief is going but the green area appear to be on slopes or valley floors. Notice that some features are very green indeed.

I insert copies of photos from the NASA site. If the areas are green, then it may be life but it may also be a mineral salt such as ferrous sulphate or cupric chloride. To find chlorophyll-like compounds a spectrum will have to be done. It is only alive if it grows. I suspect that there is an micro-organism that is dust-like and grows by photo-synthesis from sunlight. I suggest that it grows very slowly. If there is a plant then it is likely that animals are eating it and oxidise the plant material using oxygen present in very small quantities in the atmosphere.

I was working at the Radio and Space Research Station when the Viking robot sent data back to Earth I was given a chart with the output of the chromatography experiment where samples of soil from Mars were backed in ovens and the gas analysed and asked to interpret it as was involved in the design of the instrument. I compared the curve with curves generated by organic compounds locally on an identical machine and found the trace for glycine, fructose and other amino acids and sugars and a complex trace towards the end indicating complex organics.

This suggests that life had been found and that the Viking robot had taken a whole plant.

Photographs taken on Mars showed a blue sky and green patches on all the rocks in the field of view.

Later the photographs were re-issued with a magenta cast added to hide the blue sky and the green colours.

This object, seen on Mars, looks like the shell of a long dead animal. It shows bilateral symmetry and the attachments for a series of legs. It looks like it is segmented with the head towards the camera. The object is very like Trilobites that are found on Earth and it looks like the shell of a King crab.

This is a microscope image. The rectangular box indicates the presence of two trace fossils. The look like two members of the same species of long segmented worm with signs of a number of bristles or small legs each side. It shows bilateral symmetry.

Detail of trace fossils there is a grove where a worm has been buried and then decomposed.

Notice in this image that the sky is blue and the soil is red but the rocks have a darker colour and may be greenish in places if we could see them bigger.

This image shows Martian water interacting with the surface in the form of mist and may be how any life on Mars gets its water supply. This is like life in arid regions on earth.

I suggest that any attempt to introduce life from Earth be left until Martian life has been studied or its existence disproved.

Previous visits by human beings are possible. My mother who is now 96 says that Hitler had a base on the Moon by 1927 and on Mars by 1930 and in 1939 he launched a star ship fleet to Proximal Centurii and another source said that a colony has been set up on bases in that star system.

The Nazis on the Moon had bases there that are visible in photographs by spacecraft in 1969 and the face on Mars is a memorial to a German Astronaught which was put up hurriedly in 1970. We intercepted an teleprinter signal between moon base and earth support that complained that they had no food and a bit later one confirming that food had arrived. That was in 1969 when I worked at an intercept station near London.

They told me that the expedition to star base was successful but they had lost 50 during the journey when they were working outside to repair damage due to spacesuit failure.

This an enhanced image of the face on Mars,
it shows a man wearing the Astronaught's undergarment.

Is there life on Mars?

A Speculation