Nobody and no idea should be immune to critical review, but there's no need to get grumpy and bitchy about it.
If ideas of a CO2-based Mars are to be robust, they must be debated.
Since I originally came up with the concept, some aspects of it have failed or been shown to be less good. Others remain valid.
We have all learned (essentially from the wonderful Mars Rovers) that strongly acidic solutions remain liquid at temperatures that mere brines freeze solid, and that Mars has a strong history of acid fluid movement. Mars is Sulphur rich (as in acidic, sulphuric acid), and CO2 poor, apparently. When we compare Mars, Venus, and Earth, Mars is missing a lot of CO2 - a lot of carbon. It is also missing Nitrogen, but rich in Sulphur. It's a different planet than any other, and direct analogues generally fail.
In the same way that arguments based on Earth's water fail, so perhaps do arguments based on Venus' CO2?
I think we still see interesting volatile cycles of CO2 in the near-polar areas, and I have some good arguments about modern-day small-scale flows (the gullies). But I think an acidic groundwater outburst is probably a better explanation now for the giant outburst channels than was a fresh-water outburst model of 1990's vintage.
The important thing is to keep an open mind, and to look at all new data, NOT in terms of how it fits your own preferred model, but in terms of whether the results were expected - if not, they are an insight into what is REALLY happening, rather than what you, or I, would LIKE to be happening.
Space/Science » in reply to Actually education has very little to do with it
I thought it was Bone HEAD, actually... 8-)
The whole thread (42 posts)
- Well, Nick?..You're Mars theory has received it's most vital support evidence to date.
- Your inference that Mars harbors no pathogens is not supported
- Tharsis Bulge.
- Yet we still know very little
- re: Well, Nick?..You're Mars theory has received it's most vital support evidence to date.