Photo # 1 (Jan 2010)

 

MARTIAN TRAILS

Man has a poor understanding of life. He mistakes knowledge for wisdom. He tries to unveil the Holy secrets of our Father, the Great Spirit. He attempts to impose his laws and ways on Mother Earth. Even though he, himself, is a part of nature, he chooses to disregard and ignore it for the sake of his own immediate gain. But the laws of nature are far stronger than those of mankind.

Man must awake at last, and learn to understand how little time there remains before he will become the cause of his own downfall. And he has so much to learn. To learn to see with the heart. He must learn to respect Mother Earth - She who has given life to everything; to our brothers and sisters, the animals and plants, to the rivers, the lakes, the oceans and the winds. He must realize that this planet does not belong to him; but that he has to care for and maintain the delicate balance of nature for the sake of the wellbeing of our children and of all future generations. It is the duty of man to preserve the Earth and the Creation of the Great Spirit. Mankind being but a grain of sand in the Holy circle which encloses all of life.
                               - Chief White Cloud.

Credit: HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona), NASA

Challenging Question

What could have created these scribbles on the Martian landscape?

a. Tracks of the remotely guided roving vehicles from Earth?

b. An intelligent race wanting to communicate to us?

c. Dust devils?

This portion of a recent high-resolution picture from the HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows twisting dark trails criss-crossing light colored terrain on the Martian surface. Newly formed trails like these had presented researchers with a tantalizing Martian mystery but are now known to be the work of miniature wind vortices known to occur on the red planet - Martian dust devils. Such spinning columns of rising air heated by the warm surface are also common in dry and desert areas on planet Earth. Typically lasting only a few minutes, dust devils become visible as they pick up loose red-colored dust leaving the darker and heavier sand beneath intact. On Mars, dust devils can be up to 8 kilometers high. Dust devils have been credited with unexpected cleanings of mars rover solar panels.

More Challenging Questions

What disaster could have brought Mars to be as mysteriously barren as it is today?

Can we avoid our planet becoming another toasted, barren disaster?

What are YOU doing to make this possible?

What are YOU doing to make this impossible?

                         - Dan Benor, MD