Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to re: active geyser vs passive spot

re: active geyser vs passive spot
Greg Orme — (archived)

Yes martianspiders.com is my site. I'm going to be away for about a week. Why don't you try and write something up more formally? I see the dark spots but I see no real correlation between their position and the spider cores. Also there are plenty of areas with no spots and no spiders. If the hypothetical discharges caused spiders then the dark spots should be on the spider center most times, not just occasionally. The dark spots are more consistent with CO2 ice getting sublimated off darker soil in patches. Also there is nothing there to scorch from discharges, so no dark residue from it. But you don't need the dark spots to be from discharges. Just because these discharges may (or may not) be involved in spider formation, that doesn't mean these discharges have to make spots, geysers and everything else too. You still have to come up with a reason the spiders are confined to a narrow range of altitudes and apparently form in the spring. Like I said CO2 sublimating may form static discharges, I don't know but there may be a mechanism there.
I recall a similar theory about discharges, that the sun derives much of its light because of static charges and the galaxies are held together in part by electrostatic forces. Those authors asserted many of the craters on Mars and the Moon are caused by these discharges instead of meteor impacts.
I don't know much about it, but it appears to me that Nick (who is a planetary scientist that knows martian science as well as anyone alive) has raised some valid issues. Show him some respect and think about what he said for a while. So if you can find those authors who have this similar theory then you could discuss the spider formation theory with them. It seems they assert craters and you assert spiders from the same mechanism. So correspondence with them might help you and perhaps them.
Then perhaps you could take some of the feedback you have had and your references, and try to write it down in a more formal way. A forum doesn't always work for that.
I'm not trying to dismiss your theory but I need to think about it for a while without responding quickly in a too and fro forum. I think it has shortcomings but as you can see yourself so do the other models of spider formation. I am impressed by your grasp of the spider images as well.

Log in or register to post.

The whole thread (86 posts)