An image of Mars from the HiRise camera. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona



 

MRO's Fifth Year
Mar 11, 2011

Cameras orbiting Mars continue to provide spectacular imagery that helps confirm Electric Universe theories.

On August 12, 2005 NASA launched the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on a two year mission to map the surface of the Red Planet. After several months of flight, polar orbit insertion occurred on March 10, 2006. However, more months of aerobraking—dipping in and out of the Martian atmosphere in order to reduce speed—were required, as well as thruster burns needed to circularize its orbit. Final orbital parameters were achieved in September 2006.

Its other primary science goal was and continues to be a search for water in the barren wastelands of Mars, as well as to identify landing sites for future robotic explorers. After completion of its original mission, MRO was funded twice more, with another two years to go.

Several scientific instruments are onboard the spacecraft. Among them are a spectrometer, radar, and a gravity field detector, as well as several cameras assigned to various tasks. In particular, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera (HiRise), a 0.5 meter telescope, able to resolve objects as small as 30 centimeters from 300 kilometers up, has provided Electric Universe advocates uncountable examples of past, intense electrical activity on Mars.

The equatorial diameter of Mars is approximately 6793 kilometers, about half that of Earth. Its average temperature is - 63 Celsius, compared to Earth at 13 Celsius. The atmospheric density on Mars is equivalent to standing on top of a mountain six times taller than Mount Everest, or 1/800 that of Earth at sea level.

Scientists speculate that four billion years ago, Mars lost most of its atmosphere. How is not known, but several theories have been put forward. An asteroid impact might have exploded with such force that it blew the atmosphere away. A torrent of charged particles blazing out from the Sun could have eaten away the atmosphere over millions of years, leaving Mars as it is today.

Martian areography tells a story of incredibly violent events. It appears from the many images sent to Earth by MRO's HiRise camera that it once experienced powerful plasma discharges on a massive scale. As terrain mapping instruments indicate, the northern latitudes of Mars are six kilometers below the mean elevation of the planet.

Burned and blasted craters, piles of scorched dust covering almost an entire hemisphere, and great trenches that wend across its scarred face lead to the conclusion that lightning thousands or millions of times more energetic than we know today devastated Mars. The existence of these formations constitutes a confirmation of the Electric Universe hypothesis.

On Mars, deep channels, ripples and other structures are thought to be the remains of water flowing on the surface, eroding it in the same way as water is believed to erode our planet. It has been proposed that there were oceans of water millions of years ago, so chemicals that form on Earth in the presence of water are presumed to have formed on Mars in the same fashion. Despite the contradictory evidence of mineral deposits that would be destroyed by water, such as olivine, the flowing water hypothesis continues to guide consensus theories.

It has been suggested many times in these pages that electric arcs could have sculpted what we see on Mars. Valles Marineris, Olympus Mons, the vast 900 kilometer crater in Argyre Planitia, the terraced mounds in Arabia Terra, as well as both Martian poles demonstrate strong support for the electric discharge theory.

NASA scientists often refer to what they find on Mars as "mysterious" or "puzzling" with long years of research and contemplation ahead of them. We predict that the reason for the confusion is the problem of reverse application. Earth should not be used to explain the Solar System. The geological patterns found elsewhere deserve alternative viewpoints.

Stephen Smith

Multimedia

 
The Lightning-Scarred Planet Mars
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