It's well known that electrical cratering leaves extremely smooth surfaces. That's why they use it in the lab. Known as EDM.

No fluid involved in said exchange. Just a rotating pair of electric currents leaving a perfectly smooth perfectly round crater (though depending on how far apart the arcs are, a blister or bump may be present in the very bottom of the crater where material isn't machined; copius examples of these on Mars, craters with bumps in the middle everywhere, though few people remark on it). OF course that's just one fairly stable form of electrical discharge (braided/rotating current). My understanding is that sometimes arcs may also be drawn to the edges of pre-existing craters, channels, etc. Pretty much any sharply defined high edge, or any spikes where charge can get a leg up or a higher place at which to start an arc.

Anywho. I won't go into much more detail since nobody really seems interested in "alternate" explanations. Suffice it to say electrical discharges can leave just as smooth if not more smooth of a surface vs fluid flows. But it's rarely considered, for whatever reason, as a possible force of change. Seems like folks just can't "envision" it since we dont' see it actively much on Earth outside of EDM in the lab (lightning is a bit more chaotic, to say the least, but we know that it does eject material out of surfaces and leave arc scars). *Shrug* Oh well. Someday they'll figure it out...

Not saying 100% that this was caused by other than fluids, I'm just saying that NAsa tends to like to jump the gun before they have anything really "definitive" to share. The images I saw of this were so grainy as to be a virtual Rorschach test for what you "want to see", rather than being able to highly resolve what's "actually" there.

I just think they need to be able to resolve things much better in images before jumpingto conclusions. I mean, we can't directly see a lake there, all we can see if what appears to be a dark depression. I'm just saying we can't "know" what made it or if anything's in it until we can either get better images, or somehow directly test/measure its contents.

My objection isn't so much to them calling it fluids or methane/ethane as releasing info as ostensibly "fact" before direct indisputable evidence of compositoin, contents, etc. is found. I mean, other guesses may well be equally valid versus methane/ethane erosion. I just worry when we get an ambiguous image and they say "well this is almost certainly X or Y" despite not really knowing...

I mean, to me, when you look closely at the full resolution image, you see dots in the middle of the right lake, as though we can see the bottom, and it's basically dry. Even on the left, it appears there are dots in the middle, or "on the bottom." So, unless they've got some super-super high res images thay they're not sharing... Frankly I'm just not even seeing liquids so much as two big holes in the ground with a tiny spot between them connecting them.

And how did two craters or lakes form with ostnsibly no visible inflow or outflow channels? Just wondering... At least not much you can see in frame. And they don't seem to provide any context shots to compare with to see if there's a large structure, or any other channels nearby. At least from the image I saw. Was everyone else looking at some other image? Just wondering...

Actually, I just saved the high-res version and blew it up, and I can pretty clearly see specks all over the middle of the "lakes" consistent with the "ground" nearby. It's just dark. But the flecks are there, and all over, if you blow the image up. It really justl ooks like two big holes in the ground. I see no liquids. But I don't know if this sensor would "see" liquid (it might not if it's like radar and the liquid is thin, yeah?). IF it only sees the major "rock" formations and not the fluid? Or maybe there's really just NO fluid, but only rock?

Like I said, we really just need better resolution images. This is insufficient to make any clear prognostications off of. But I can say pretty surely that from blowing it up a few times, I don't "see" liquids, ripples, waves, etc. just the bottom of the holes in a pattern that seems consistent with the bottom of a hole.

Aside from which the little nub sticking off the lower right appears to be in alignment with the "channel" proceeding off the upper left portion of the right "crater," and both appear to be much shallower than the craters/lakes/whatever. Suggests to me that the linear-ish gouge was probably formed first, and the much larger/deeper craters were formed second. Could be wrong, but... Y'never know.

Cheers,
~Michael