In the face of such disappointments of theory, we should be considering other theories of how these features can be carved. I've suggested electricity. I've shown that on earth, electricity bands around specific latitudes. I've shown in another post that Mars' south pole is aligned preferentially to the sun at perihelion, which is 26-36 million miles closer to the sun than the northern hemisphere at aphelion, thus it would be bombarded by more charged particles than the north which is primarily exposed at aphelion. And as we know radiated energy drops off steeply the further you get from the source. since we're dividing total output in three dimensions around an increasing sphere. That point was driven into me in astronomy 101 (actually it was a classon black holes, quasars, pulsars, black bodies, etc. Quite interesting, though I now see that most of it was flat wrong based on newer observations and theoretical difficulties explaining even the simplest structures we see repeatedly throughout the universe... But, that's a discussion for another day.). Though I'm not heavily into the maths of it, radiative intensity drop-off with distance was driven home repeatedly and was on a quiz, so it kinda' sticks out in my mind. ;o]

Don't quite recall the formulas, or the units, but we'll just work with a very ROUGH set of equations and measurements I've gleaned from a few sources online. Though it would be nice if someone use whatever the most accurate and standard mesurements are...

From wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intensity

|Intensity| = Power/(4*pi*r^2)

So, the absolute value of the intensity of radiated energy from a sphere is the total power or energy divided by (4 Pi r^2)

So, I'm just going to wager a guess that the intensity at perihelion will be considerably greater than at aphelion, since we're dealing with a square function in the denominator, right?

IE,

Aphelion:

(Sun's power)
---------------
( (4*Pi) * ( (128,000,000 miles)^2) )

Perihelion:

(Sun's power)
---------------
( (4*Pi) * ( (154,000,000 miles)^2 ) )

So, let's see, perihelion is appx:

(Sun's power)
---------------
Pi * 4 * 16,384,000,000,000,000 miles

OR

(Sun's power)
---------------
Pi * 65,536,000,000,000,000

OR

(Sun's power)
---------------
205,887,242,240,000,000

Whereas aphelion is appx:

(Sun's power)
---------------
Pi * 4 * 23,716,000,000,000,000

OR

(Sun's power)
---------------
Pi * 94,864,000,000,000,000

OR

(Sun's power)
---------------
298,023,793,760,000,000

So, that's what... About 93 quadrillion difference in the denominator? Roughly 100 quadrillion difference. That almost, what 1/3 to 1/2 again as much in the denominator? I think that's a significant difference, right?

Granted, taking a step back when we put ANYTHING quadrillion in the denominator, the difference may seem to be very small. But then again, this is what? The energy per, what, square mile I think? And we multiply that versus the size of the planet or the particular region we're dealing with. And there's likely going to be a moderately big difference between intensity of received radiation/particles at perihelion versus aphelion...

http://www.astronomynotes.com/starsun/s3.htm

Okay, let's just take this very rough example... We'll use their figure of 4*10^26 watts of energy PER SECOND.

So, at perihelion, the formula becomes:

4*(10^26)
---------------
205,887,242,240,000,000

OR

400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
---------------
205,887,242,240,000,000

Paring off a few zeros, it works out to:

40,000,000,000,000,000,000
---------------
20,588,724,224

Bringing out a calculator:
That works out to about 1,942,811,004.93699

Likewise, the aphelion formula becomes:

400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
---------------
298,023,793,760,000,000

OR

40,000,000,000,000,000,000
---------------
29,802,379,376

Bringning out the ol' calculator:
That works out to about 1,342,174,713.47983

So, what does that give us?
Perihelion: 1,942,811,004.93699
vs
Aphelion: 1,342,174,713.47983

Now, remember, this is PER SECOND, and (I think) per [square?] mile. Again these are all very ROUGH numbers, and I understand that. But consider that there's a 600 million watt-per-second per mile (square?) difference in intensity at perihelion and aphelion. If we multiply this over the face of the planet that's getting hit by the sun's rays directly... Well, how many square miles is one hemisphere of the red planet?

Wikipedia lists it as appx: "5,907,000 square miles" Halve that to get the square miles on one side:2,953,500 miles^2.

So, if we're taking the output per second of the sun and figuring out how much energy is probably hitting mars per second at perihelion and aphelion.

So, if we're working in miles, and I'm correct that the energy calculations are approximately right in terms of being per square mile at destination...

At perihelion we've got 1,942,811,004.93699 (watts per square mile) * 2,953,500 (square miles) = 5,738,092,303,081,399.965 watts total energy being intercepted by Mars per second.

At aphelion we've got 1,342,174,713.47983 (watts per square mile) * 2,953,500 (square miles) = 3,964,113,016,262,677.905 total energy intercepted by mars.

So:

Perihelion intercepts: 5,738,092,303,081,399.965 (watts/second)
Aphelion intercepts: 3,964,113,016,262,677.905 (watts/second)

That's a difference, of what, appx 2 quadrillion watts? Is that right? Almost half again as much energy at perihelion as at aphelion. And that's only over the course of one second... Obviously that scales over time...

If we really wanted to, we could ask how this equates on a monthly basis:

Google says: "1 month = 2629743.83 seconds"

So, if we go it again:

Per month, Mars receives appx:

Perihelion:15,089,712,829,998,801,545,720.96595 = (5,738,092,303,081,399.965 * 2,629,743.83) Total watts over the course of a month.

Aphelion: 10,424,601,745,939,466,879,951.07615 = (3,964,113,016,262,677.905 * 2,629,743.83) Total watts over the course of a month.

So, over the course of a single month (2,629,743.83 seconds), there's approximately a 5 hexillion watt difference between the intensity of received radiation at perihelion and aphelion. Again, very rough numbers and may be off by a LOT. But the basic principle is there. The radiated intensity is considerably greater over long periods of time at perihelion than at aphelion. On the order of 1.5 times as much received radiation at perihelion than received at aphelion. Wholly half again as much!

If we consider that the southern hemisphere is in summer and the northern hemisphere is in winter, at perihelion, we can assume that anywhere from more than half to 3/4 of that radiation is going to the southern hemisphere. And my guess is that a good portion of the charged particles (electrons/nulcei) emitted from the sun will be preferentially drawn to the southern hemisphere as well. And probably in preferential bands along field lines, be they ever so weak.

Now I'll be the first to say my number are rough and possibly vague or possibly not in the right units (but I pretty much said that from the beginning). But, nonetheless it's a demonstration of principle. IE, the difference in solar energy absorbed by the planet at perihelion versus aphelion. I'd invite you to use whatever more concrete numbers you have in terms of astrophysical data on position and sun energy output as it applies to how it moves through space (I'll admit I'm still learning and may have gotten the units wrong; but I think I got the basic radiating body and interception intensity principles right).

So, if an astrophsyics buff who good with numbers could get back with me on the ACTUAL numbers and/or their significance, I'd be a happy camper. This is a fun, happy, friendly forum filled with cooperation/teamwork, right? *Smile*