Home Plate (Mars)

 

 

Home Plate
HiRISE image of Home Plate.
Coordinates	14°36′S 175°30′E / 14.6°S 175.5°E / -14.6; 175.5Coordinates: 14°36′S 175°30′E / 14.6°S 175.5°E / -14.6; 175.5
Type of feature	Rock outcrop
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Home Plate is a plateau roughly 90 m across within the Columbia Hills, Mars. It is informally named for its similarity in shape to a baseball home plate. Home Plate is a rocky outcrop that appears to show layered features.

 Exploration

Spirit arrived at Home Plate on sol 744 (February 7, 2006) and has completed a scientific investigation with her robotic arm before moving to Low Ridge Haven due to power concerns. She returned on sol 1126 to resume those studies. ^[1]

Spirit spent her third Martian winter on Home Plate's north edge. ^[2]

Home Plate (upper center), as seen from the summit of Husband Hill.

 Origins

Bomb sag at Home Plate.

Scientists now believe that Home Plate is an explosive volcanic deposit. It is surrounded by deposits of basalt, which exploded on contact with water. The presence of brine is further supported by the high concentration of chloride ions in the surrounding rocks. The presence of bomb sags (laminae typically found in beds of volcanish ash) seems to confirm this hypothesis.^[3]

A patch of 90% pure opaline silicon dioxide was unearthed by Spirit in the vicinity of Home Plate. The patch is believed to be formed in acidic hydrothermal conditions, which supports the theory that Home Plate is of an explosive volcanic origin. Water is also present as mineral hydrates. ^[4][5]

Since 2008, scientists believe that this formation is an example of an eroded, ancient, and extinct fumarole. ^[6]

 References

1. ^ A.J.S. Rayl. "Spirit Homes in on Mitcheltree Ridge, Opportunity Crosses Valley Without Peril". http://planetary.org/news/2007/0331_Mars_Exploration_Rovers_Update_Spirit.html. Retrieved 2007-03-31. 
2. ^ Maggie McKee. "Mars rover Spirit to head north for the winter". http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn12884-mars-rover-spirit-to-head-north-for-the-winter.html. Retrieved 2007-12-26. 
3. ^ Squyres, et al. (2007). "Pyroclastic Activity at Home Plate in Gusev Crater, Mars". Science 316 (5825): 738–742. doi:10.1126/science.1139045. PMID 17478719. 
4. ^ "Mars Rover Spirit Unearths Surprise Evidence of Wetter Past". http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/mer-20070521.html. Retrieved 2007-05-30. 
5. ^ Squyres, et al. (2008). "Detection of Silica-Rich Deposits on Mars". Science 320 (5879): 1063–1067. doi:10.1126/science.1155429. PMID 18497295. 
6. ^ The Hydrothermal System at Home Plate in Gusev Crater, Mars, R.V.Morris, S.W.Squyres, -et al., Lunar & Planetary Sciece XXXIX(2008)

 External links

Curious rock with a jutting portion. (Animated GIF image for stereoscopic perception).

• Nasa's Mars Exploration Program
• Current position of the Mars rovers - Home Plate is visible, with Spirit's journey around it.
• www.marsgeo.com The Geology of Home Plate
• The Planetary Society Weblog: Home, Sweet Home for Spirit
• Official Mars Rovers site

 See also

Wikinews has related news: Spirit Rover on Mars finds water made 'silica-rich soil'

• List of rocks on Mars

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Plate_(Mars)"

Categories: Aeolis quadrangle | Rocks on Mars

 

Mars orbiter spots rover on weird plateau

Imagery could help scientists figure out history of ‘Home Plate’

Since the HiRISE picture was taken, Spirit has been roaming around in search of a safe place to spend the next Martian winter. At first, Spirit headed south toward a potential "off-ramp" that would lead away from Home Plate. However, the mission team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory decided instead to send Spirit northward, to a spot where the solar-powered robot could soak up more of the sun's rays to get it through the winter.

The Opportunity rover, meanwhile, is parked at what mission managers call a "bathtub ring" of rock layers just below Victoria Crater's rim. The rover is focusing on a rock layer nicknamed Smith — and coping with a bent brush on its rock abrasion tool, according to a status report released last week.

The two rovers are both in good condition almost four Earth years since they landed on the Red Planet — which has come as a pleasant surprise for mission managers who originally planned for a 90-day primary mission. MRO arrived at the Red Planet in March 2006 for what's expected to be a four-year, $720 million primary mission.

Discovery of life on Mars by Andrew D. Basiago
chosen #1 UFO story of 2008

May 11, 12:41 PMSeattle Exopolitics ExaminerAlfred Lambremont Webre
MARS: Andrew D. Basiago

The discovery of life on Mars by Andrew D. Basiago has been chosen as the #1 UFO story of 2008.  EXOPOLITICSRADIO.ORG was notified of the award by veteran broadcaster Jerry Pippin in a May 10, 2009 email statement, “We made your [EXOPOLITICSRADIO.ORG with Alfred Lambremont Webre] broadcast story on the discovery of life on Mars the top UFO event of 2008.”   In a 41-page paper dated Dec. 12, 2008, Washington State trial lawyer and environmental scholar Andrew D. Basiago sets out analysis and photographs identifying 3 species of humanoid beings, numerous species of animals, structures and statues on the surface of Mars.  These photographs are images isolated by Andrew D. Basiago from within NASA rover Spirit photograph PIA 10214 , a composite photograph taken in November 2007 in the Columbia basin on Mars, and released public by NASA on its website in January 2008. 

Mr. Basiago’s landmark paper, The Discovery of Life on Mars, can be downloaded free in PDF format at www.exopolitics.com and by clicking here.

Top 5 UFO stories of 2008

The top 5 UFO stories of 2008 as chosen by Jerry Pippin include:

“1.   Life on Mars? NASA [rover Spirit] photos seem to show statues, totem poles and other evidence of life.

“2. Needles UFO Crash or was it something from Black Ops?

“3. Death of Mr. X- UFO whistle blower, who did a series of shows on top secret papers involving military knowledge of UFOs dies mysteriously in December.

“4. Gary McKinnon, the UFO hacker battles extradition to the US for cyber terrorism - He just received a judicial review slated for Mid-March in his fight to stay in the UK

“5. The Stephenville, Texas UFO sighting - UFOs near the Bush Vacation White House, hundreds see them.”

On learning of the award, Basiago praised the work of other Mars anomaly researchers including Schiaparelli, Lowell, Tesla, Di Pietro, Molinar, Carlotto, Hoagland, Drasin, McDaniel, Pillinger, Hancock, Van Flanderen, Skipper, Brown, and Webre.

"Yes!  Mars is inhabited!" - Andrew D. Basiago

Reached at his law office in southwest Washington State, Mr. Basiago stated, "I am delighted and honored that Jerry Pippin has selected my discovery of life on Mars as the top UFO story of 2008.

"When I was writing my paper The Discovery of Life on Mars in 2008, I knew that I was standing on the shoulders of giants.

"For more than a century, many dedicated and diligent investigators have endeavored to enlighten human beings on Earth about the fact that life exists on Mars.

"I would include in this tradition such individuals as Schiaparelli, Lowell, Tesla, DiPietro, Molenaar, Carlotto, Hoagland, Drasin, McDaniel, Pillinger, Hancock, Van Flanderen, Skipper, Brown, and Webre.

"These Mars researchers have posed to humanity a question of vital significance, namely, "Does the planet that every two years comes closest to Earth harbor life?," and with it, by implication, the question, "Do we live in an inhabited Universe?"

"I was the individual given the cosmic privilege to discover in NASA's own photographs dispositive evidence of life on Mars, and affirm the question long posed by these earlier researchers, and declare, at last, "Yes!  Mars is inhabited!"

"The Discovery of Life on Mars is the first work in natural history to analyze evidence of life forms and ancient artifacts on Mars in such a way as to demonstrably prove that Mars is inhabited.

"Now that humanity has this information available to us, we must move beyond the debate over whether Mars is inhabited and begin the debate about what we should do about the discovery that Mars is inhabited.

"The United States and Russia are presently planning manned missions to Mars, and even as distinguished a space scientist as astronaut Buzz Aldrin has called for the placement of human settlements on Mars.

"Since Mars does not belong to us -- since Mars belongs to the Martians -- such proposals are fraught with scientific, diplomatic and environmental implications that we have not even begun to ponder, much less publicly debate.

"We must now decide whether such visits to Mars should even take place, and if they do take place, how they might take place without causing irreparable harm to the environment of Mars or untoward disruption of its indigenous civilization."

Exopolitics Radio & the discovery of life on Mars

The #1 UFO story of 2008 – the discovery of life on Mars by Andrew D. Basiago - was broadcast in a series of 4 original programs by EXOPOLITICSRADIO.ORG with Alfred Lambremont Webre, a weekly, magazine format Exopolitical public affairs talk show, exploring the evidence for and impact on our human society of intelligent, organized life in the Universe.  As of May 11, 2009, EXOPOLITICS RADIO.ORG was listened to in over 70 countries (including USA and Canada). Its programs are accessed free at any time at www.exopoliticsradio.org as a public service.

Programs on the award-winning discovery of life on Mars by Andrew D. Basiago include the following:

(1) EXOPOLITICS RADIO: The Discovery of Life on Mars by Andrew D. Basiago with Alfred Lambremont Webre -

Part I: The Beings on the Edge and the Humanoid Beings in the Rock Garden and on Tsiolkovski Ridge

Summary of program: Part I of a conversation with Andrew D. Basiago about his discovery of life on Mars in NASA photograph PIA10214, which is a panoramic montage of a series of snapshots of the Martian surface that were taken by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit in 2007, when Spirit was perched on the western edge of the Home Plate plateau in the inner basin of the Columbia Hills range of the Gusev Crater on Mars. How NASA photograph PIA10214 contains evidence of four different types of humanoid beings, animal species that exist, once existed, or have never existed on Earth, carved statues, built structures, and dead bodies. How the iconic figure of a human female found jutting from the edge of a plateau in the NASA photo is actually part of a complex statue that combines human male and female figures, a pediment, and a painted rock carving of a plumed serpent biting the neck of a bearded male human. How humanoid beings with bulbous heads and spindly bodies are plainly visible in The Rock Garden and on Tsiolkovski Ridge.

Listen to this program now (audio archive): http://www.exopoliticsradio.com/1-24-09.html

2. EXOPOLITICS RADIO: The Discovery of Life on Mars by Andrew D. Basiago with Alfred Lambremont Webre

-- Part II: Typologies of Martian humanoids

Summary of program: Part II of a conversation with American lawyer Andrew D. Basiago about his discovery of life on Mars in NASA photographs PIA10214, which is a panoramic montage of a series of snapshots of the Martian surface that were taken by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit in 2007, when Spirit was perched on the western edge of the Home Plate Plateau in the inner basin of the Columbia Hills range inside the Gusev Crater on Mars.

How four typologies of possible humanoids have been identified in the NASA photograph:

(1) First typology: Humanoid beings with bulbous heads and spindly bodies, like the Gray "extraterrestrials" of the UFO literature;

(2) Second typology: Transparent forms, like glass totems;

(3) Third typology: Human-insect hybrids, such as The Scorpion Man that can be seen in The Turquoise Field; Human-reptile hybrids, such as the Gumby Lizards that can be seen in and around The Rock Garden; and beings with humanoid heads and larval, worm-like, or slug-like bodies that can be seen throughout photograph PIA10214;

(4) Fourth typology: The forms that are almost "all head," like the comedic form christened Mr. Potato Head, which might not be a life form but a building.

How the evidence of intelligent humanoid life on Mars suppressed by NASA includes:

(1) Abstract artwork, with many carved heads and faces formed from indigenous rocks predominating; bas reliefs and intaglios on the sides of rocks, which are also ubiquitous; and ground drawings seen in the far distance from both the western edge of the Home Plate Plateau in PIA10214 and the southern edge of the Home Plate Plateau in PIA11049;

(2) Architecture, including The Face of the Bull that can be seen on the right edge of the Home Plate Plateau, which is a terraced, multi-leveled platform that might have once have served as a home or a viewing platform at a natural vista point that overlooks the valley terrain depicted in PIA10214.

Listen to this program now (audio archive): http://www.exopoliticsradio.com/1-31-09.html

3. EXOPOLITICS: The Discovery of Life on Mars by Andrew D. Basiago with Alfred Lambremont Webre

Part III: Typologies of Martian animals

Summary of program: Part III of a conversation with American lawyer Andrew D. Basiago about his discovery of life on Mars in NASA photograph PIA10214, which is a panoramic montage of a series of snapshots of the Martian surface that were taken by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit in 2007, when Spirit was perched on the western edge of the Home Plate Plateau in the inner basin of the Columbia Hills range of the Gusev Crater on Mars.

How NASA photograph PIA10214 contains evidence of animal species that exist, once existed, or have never existed on Earth.

These include animal species of the:

(1) First category - Animals that presently exist on Earth. The first category consists of animals that resemble species that presently live on Earth. This category includes elephants, platypuses, horses, cows, frogs, turtles, snakes, slugs, and snails;

(2) Second category - Hybrids of living Earth species. The second category is those animals that combine elements of species that inhabit Earth at this time in Earth's biological history and that from our perspective would be viewed as hybrids of living animal species. This category is exemplified by one species on Mars that combines the bodily shape of an octopus with the face of a lion or a dog;

(3) Third category - Extinct Earth species. The third category includes those animals that resemble dinosaur and reptile species that are extinct on Earth. In this category, we can place the plesiosaur, which has been proposed as a solution to the Loch Ness, Lake Champlain, and Lake Okanogan mysteries. Plesiosaurus, a reptile species, is quite common on Mars, but did not survive the K-T extinction on Earth. The plesiosaurs on Mars resemble the dinosaur species brachiosaurus or a long-necked tortoise;

(4) Fourth category - Animals that have never existed on Earth. The fourth category encompasses those animals that are unlike anything that has ever lived on planet Earth. Into this category, we can place the human-lizard hybrids seen resting on the ground, as if cold-blooded and fairly immobile by nature. How reptilian species appear to predominate on Mars. How, as confirmed by Mars anomalists working separately, predation of humanoids by reptoids and serpents is extensive on Mars and how, in this way, the balance of nature on Mars diverges from that on Earth.

Listen to program now (audio archive): http://www.exopoliticsradio.com/2-7-09.html

EXOPOLITICS: The Discovery of Life on Mars by Andrew D. Basiago with Alfred Lambremont Webre

Part IV: Martian structures; NASA's cover-up of life on Mars

Summary of program: Part IV of a conversation with American lawyer Andrew D. Basiago about his discovery of life on Mars in NASA photograph PIA10214, which is a panoramic montage of a series of snapshots of the Martian surface that were taken by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit in 2007, when Spirit was perched on the western edge of the Home Plate Plateau in the inner basin of the Columbia Hills range of the Gusev Crater on Mars.

How the evidence of built structures on Mars found in NASA PIA10214 is so strong that it proves that Mars is – or once was – inhabited by beings capable of building things.

How some of the best evidence for built structures is lying within plain sight, on the right side of the cliff directly in front of Spirit. There, laid out like a child's toys, are The Sarcophagus of a King, an aqueduct shaped like a Water Sprite, and the scaffolding of a long-ago abandoned building crafted to resemble The Face of a Bull.

How the sarcophagus resembles a tin soldier and has the head and body of a king in the Egyptian style. We can readily see the king's eye, ear, and beard. Amazingly, his thin neck remains intact. The king is wearing a hat identical to the banked, cylindrical type worn by the Great Royal Wife of the Sun King Pharaoh Akhenaton, Queen Nefertiti, as depicted in the iconic bust of her discovered by Ludwig Borchardt at Amarna, Egypt in 1912.

How, as with the sarcophagus, an Egyptian hat sits atop one of the stone heads on Tsiolkovski Ridge and The Queen at the Outcropping, whose "Gray" face and mitered hat blend into the terrain because they were carved from the same amber-colored rock. Curiously, the statues on the ridge and the sarcophagus have been placed true north, which suggests that the entire area might once have served as a funereal site.

Metaphorically, they also point to Egypt and the historical linkage between Ancient Egypt and Ancient Mars.

How cat statues on Mars also reveal this connection to Ancient Egypt, where cats were commonplace in statuary and worshiped during the reign of the Pharaohs.

How NASA, which was charged in the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 with exploring space on behalf of humankind and informing all humanity of its discoveries, is now engaged in a cover-up of the fact that life exists on Mars.

How NASA is engaged in a strategy of disinformation, in which it periodically releases news of small, incremental discoveries that it is making on Mars, such as the existence of ice or methane, while concealing the fact that evidence that life exists on Mars is to be found in the photographs of the Red Planet taken by Spirit.

Listen to program now (audio archive): http://www.exopoliticsradio.com/2-14-09.html

About award-winning discoverer Andrew D. Basiago

The discoverer of life on Mars, Andrew D. Basiago, 47, is an American trial lawyer, writer, and environmental scholar. He was born on September 18, 1961 in Morristown, New Jersey, the youngest of five children, and grew up in New Jersey and California. Andy was one of the “whiz kids” who served from 1969 to 1972 in DARPA’s time-space exploration program, Project Pegasus.

A past member of Mensa, the high IQ society, he holds five degrees, including a BA in History from UCLA and a Master of Philosophy from the University of Cambridge. While an undergraduate at UCLA, Andy became a journalist and a protégé of editor Norman Cousins of the Saturday Review, who once compared him to Robert Hutchins and nominated him to be the Editor of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He was inspired by a meeting with architect Buckminster Fuller in 1981 to pursue a career in environmental policy. After their meeting, Fuller wrote: “Andrew Basiago’s integrity augurs well for humanity’s continuance in (the) Universe.”

Andy began his career writing articles about the urban environment for Los Angeles newspapers, national periodicals, and the Cousteau Society magazine Calypso Log. He studied environmental law at Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, and then went on to design nature-friendly urban plans for cities in California and study environmental law and policy with Professor Malcolm Grant at Cambridge. His papers about the theory and practice of urban sustainability have been published in international, peer-reviewed journals in Australia, Britain, and the United States, cited widely, and placed in the environmental policy collections of major university libraries.

Andy was admitted to the Washington State Bar Association in 1996. A lawyer in private practice, he represents and collaborates with writers and filmmakers in the development of books, TV shows, and feature films with planetary and interplanetary themes. Recently, he edited several major works related to humanity’s contact with extraterrestrial life. He was the editor of Alfred Lambremont Webre’s book, Exopolitics: Politics, Government and Law in the Universe (Universe Books, 2005), which uses as a case study human contact with an advanced civilization on Mars. He also edited The Fátima Trilogy by Joaquim Fernandes, Fina d’Armada, and other scholars (Anomalist Books, 2007), a definitive history of the Fátima Incident of 1917 that explores its extraterrestrial aspects.

Andy founded the Mars Anomaly Research Society (MARS) in 2008 after discovering abundant evidence of life in a photograph of the Red Planet beamed back to Earth by NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. His discovery of life on Mars might be an epochal event in human history. His crusade to evaluate and prove his findings and bring them to public light has been called “heroic.” About his discovery, Andy stated: “NASA-JPL photograph PIA10214 is going to spark a second Copernican revolution on our planet, and it was my cosmic privilege to discover that it contained evidence of life on Mars. Society will be transformed – I think, for the better – by the revelation of the fact that we are not alone in the Universe, indeed, that we are not even alone in our own solar system.”

More about MARS (Mars Anomaly Research Society)

The Mars Anomaly Research Society (MARS) is a Washington state non-profit organization that is spearheading the international effort to research, disclose, and educate the public about the discovery of life on Mars. Andrew D. Basiago is founder and president and Alfred Lambremont Webre is chairman of MARS.  You can download over 30 free PDF documents on the discovery of life on Mars at www.exopolitics.com.  A MARS website will soon be launched at www.projectmars.net.  For more information about MARS and its ongoing discovery of life on Mars, please contact chairman.mars@gmail.com.

Andrew D. Basiago and Alfred Lambremont Webre are co-presenting MARS lectures on the discovery of life on Mars for conferences, and university, educational and professional settings. For information on MARS lectures, please contact president.mars@gmail.com or chairman.mars@gmail.com.

WHO: Andrew D. Basiago is a lawyer, writer, and environmental scholar educated at UCLA and the University of Cambridge. He maintains a private law practice in Washington State.

He was the editor of Exopolitics: Politics, Government, and Law in the Universe (Universe Books, 2005) and The Fatima Trilogy (Anomalist Books, 2007). In 2008, Andy discovered a cosmic treasure trove of life forms and ancient artifacts on Mars in photographs taken by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit.

He presented his findings in a landmark paper entitled The Discovery of Life on Mars and founded the Mars Anomaly Research Society (MARS) to foster research, disclosure, and education about the fact that Mars is inhabited and craft law and public policy pertaining to the discovery of life on Mars.   
How the evidence of intelligent humanoid life on Mars suppressed by NASA includes:

(1) Abstract artwork, with many carved heads and faces formed from indigenous rocks predominating; bas reliefs and intaglios on the sides of rocks, which are also ubiquitous; and ground drawings seen in the far distance from both the western edge of the Home Plate Plateau in PIA10214 and the southern edge of the Home Plate Plateau in PIA11049;

(2) Architecture, including The Face of the Bull that can be seen on the right edge of the Home Plate Plateau, which is a terraced, multi-leveled platform that might have once have served as a home or a viewing platform at a natural vista point that overlooks the valley terrain depicted in PIA10214.

WHO: Andrew D. Basiago is a lawyer, writer, and environmental scholar educated at UCLA and the University of Cambridge. He maintains a private law practice in Washington State.

He was the editor of Exopolitics: Politics, Government, and Law in the Universe (Universe Books, 2005) and The Fatima Trilogy (Anomalist Books, 2007). In 2008, Andy discovered a cosmic treasure trove of life forms and ancient artifacts on Mars in photographs taken by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit.

He presented his findings in a landmark paper entitled The Discovery of Life on Mars and founded the Mars Anomaly Research Society (MARS) to foster research, disclosure, and education about the fact that Mars is inhabited and craft law and public policy pertaining to the discovery of life on Mars.

FROM: http://www.exopoliticsradio.com/1-31-09.html

WHO: Andrew D. Basiago is a lawyer, writer, and environmental scholar educated at UCLA and the University of Cambridge. He maintains a private law practice in Washington State.

He was the editor of Exopolitics: Politics, Government, and Law in the Universe (Universe Books, 2005) and The Fatima Trilogy (Anomalist Books, 2007). In 2008, Andy discovered a cosmic treasure trove of life forms and ancient artifacts on Mars in photographs taken by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit.

He presented his findings in a landmark paper entitled The Discovery of Life on Mars and founded the Mars Anomaly Research Society (MARS) to foster research, disclosure, and education about the fact that Mars is inhabited and craft law and public policy pertaining to the discovery of life on Mars.

 

WHO: Andrew D. Basiago is a lawyer, writer, and environmental scholar educated at UCLA and the University of Cambridge. He maintains a private law practice in Washington State.

He was the editor of Exopolitics: Politics, Government, and Law in the Universe (Universe Books, 2005) and The Fatima Trilogy (Anomalist Books, 2007). In 2008, Andy discovered a cosmic treasure trove of life forms and ancient artifacts on Mars in photographs taken by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit.

He presented his findings in a landmark paper entitled The Discovery of Life on Mars and founded the Mars Anomaly Research Society (MARS) to foster research, disclosure, and education about the fact that Mars is inhabited and craft law and public policy pertaining to the discovery of life on Mars.

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has discovered evidence of an ancient volcanic explosion at "Home Plate," a plateau of layered bedrock approximately 2 meters (6 feet) high within the "Inner Basin" of Columbia Hills, at the rover's site in Gusev Crater. This is the first explosive volcanic deposit identified with a high degree of confidence by Spirit or its twin, Opportunity.

There is strong evidence that those layers are from a volcanic explosion, said Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. Squyres is principal investigator for the rovers' science instruments. The findings about volcanic activity are reported in a paper published in the May 4 issue of the journal Science.

Evidence shows the area near Home Plate is dominated by basaltic rocks. "When basalt erupts, it often does so as very fluid lava, rather than erupting explosively," Squyres said. "One way for basaltic lava to cause an explosion is for it to come into contact with water -- it's the pressure from the steam that causes it to go boom."

Scientists suspect that the explosion that formed Home Plate may have been caused by an interaction of basaltic lava and water. "When you look at composition of the rocks in detail, there are hints that water may have been involved," Squyres said. One example is the high chlorine content of the rocks, which might indicate that basalt had come into contact with a brine.

One of the strongest pieces of evidence for an explosive origin for Home Plate is a "bomb sag" preserved in layered rocks on the lower slopes of the plateau. Bomb sags form in volcanic explosions on Earth when rocks ejected skyward by the explosion fall into soft deposits, deforming them as they land.

Spirit arrived at Home Plate in February 2006 and spent several months exploring it in detail before driving to "Low Ridge" to pass the Martian winter. Spirit has now returned to Home Plate to continue exploration there. "We decided to go back to Home Plate, once the Martian winter ended, because it is one of the most interesting places that we've found on Gusev Crater," Squyres said. "Last year we primarily explored the northern and eastern sides of it. This time we're hoping to get to the southern and western sides." Spirit's continued exploration of Home Plate will focus largely on testing the idea that water was involved in its formation process. 

Spirit and Opportunity are in their fourth year of exploring Mars. They successfully completed their three-month prime missions in April 2004, and the missions have been extended four times. As of April 26, Spirit had spent 1,177 sols, or Martian days, on the surface of Mars and had driven 7,095 meters (4.4 miles), and Opportunity had spent 1,157 sols and driven 10,509 meters (6.5 miles). 

"Considering their age, both rovers are in good health. All science instruments are functioning and continuing to return superb science data," said John Callas, project manager of the Mars Exploration Rover mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 

JPL manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

For images and information about the rovers and their discoveries on the Web, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/mer_main.html 

For information about NASA and agency programs on the Internet, visit:  http://www.nasa.gov/home  

2007

After several months near the base of the plateau called "Home Plate" in the inner basin of the Columbia Hills range inside Gusev Crater, Spirit climbed onto the eastern edge of the plateau during the rover's 1,306th Martian day, or sol, (Sept. 5, 2007). It examined rocks and soils at several locations on the southern half of Home Plate during September and October. It was perched near the western edge of Home Plate when it used its panoramic camera (Pancam) to take the images used in this view on sols 1,366 through 1,369 (Nov. 6 through Nov. 9, 2007). With its daily solar-energy supply shrinking as Martian summer turned to fall, Spirit then drove to the northern edge of Home Plate for a favorable winter haven. The rover reached that northward-tilting site in December, in time for the fourth Earth-year anniversary of its landing on Mars. Spirit reached Mars on Jan. 4, 2004, Universal Time (Jan. 3, 2004, Pacific Standard Time). It landed at a site at about the center of the horizon in this image.

This panorama (ABOVE) covers a scene spanning left to right from southwest to northeast. The western edge of Home Plate is in the foreground, generally lighter in tone than the more distant parts of the scene. A rock-dotted hill in the middle distance across the left third of the image is "Tsiolkovski Ridge," about 30 meters or 100 feet from the edge of Home Plate and about that same distance across. A bump on the horizon above the left edge of Tsiolkovski Ridge is "Grissom Hill," about 8 kilometers or 5 miles away. At right, the highest point of the horizon is "Husband Hill," to the north and about 800 meters or half a mile away.

This view combines separate images taken through Pancam filters centered on wavelengths of 753 nanometers, 535 nanometers and 432 nanometers. It is presented in a false-color stretch to bring out subtle color differences in the scene.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University
 

Sunday, June 14, 2009

MARS Takes Its Case for Life on Mars to the American People

At its first public lecture on June 7th at Conspiracy Con 2009 in Santa Clara, California, the Mars Anomaly Research Society (MARS), a Washington State non-profit corporation, presented evidence showing that Mars, Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor, is inhabited and accused NASA, the US space agency, of a cover-up of life on Mars.

The president and founder of MARS, Andrew D. Basiago, who discovered life on Mars in 2008, told the compelling story of how he found numerous images in photographs taken by NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit that reveal that life exists on Mars.

Alfred Lambremont Webre, the chairman of MARS’ board of advisors, then set out MARS’ bold agenda for disclosure about life on Mars, including a public education campaign and a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit seeking release by the US government of its secret documents pertaining to Mars.


2008: The year that life was discovered on the Red Planet

Basiago, a lawyer from Washington State educated at UCLA and Cambridge, published a paper entitled The Discovery of Life on Mars in 2008 that is the first work to prove that Mars is an inhabited planet and that achieves over 50 “firsts” in science.

On behalf of MARS, he then sent his landmark paper to the National Geographic Society, with a letter asking its president to publish his findings in National Geographic as a major discovery in natural history.

He showed the convention dozens of photographs of the life forms and ancient artifacts that he has found in NASA images PIA10214 and PIA11049, which are westward and southward panoramas that Spirit took from the Home Plate Plateau in 2007 and 2008.

These NASA photographs, taken in the Columbia Basin of the Gusev Crater, are “a cosmic treasure trove of the humanoid beings, animal species, carved statues, and built structures on Mars that reveal that the Red Planet has been a harbinger of life for eons and is inhabited today,” Basiago told the audience.

“From my perspective, the question that now confronts us is not ‘Shall we permit the belief that Mars is inhabited?’ But rather, ‘How shall we think about it, now that we have knowledge that another planet in our solar system harbors life?’”


My favorite Martians: Five humanoid species

The five types of humanoid beings thus far identified on Mars include: human beings, like those on Earth; beings with bulbous heads and spindly bodies, like the alien beings found in the UFO literature; transparent beings, like glass totems; forms that are all head; and hybrids that combine human traits with insect and lizard ones.

The hybrids include such odd creatures as the Scorpion Man, whose bright turquoise color matches the bright turquoise rocks of Mars. The image of the Scorpion Man prompted a clamor of recognition from the audience when Basiago showed his photographs of life forms on Mars that have never been seen before on Earth. “I see it! I see it!” one woman exclaimed excitedly.

 

Biodiversity goes cosmic: The Martian menagerie

The animals on Mars include species that presently exist on Earth, such as elephants, platypuses, horses, cows, frogs, turtles, slugs, snakes, and snails; animals that once existed on Earth but are now extinct, such as plesiosaurs, which are ubiquitous on Mars but did not survive the K-T extinction on Earth; and animals that have never existed on Earth but combine the traits of two or more Earth species.

Recently, Basiago discovered a primate on Mars that he named the Sendak in honor of author Maurice Sendak, whose classic children’s book Where the Wild Things Are (1963) presages some of the life forms that he has found on Mars.

The discoverer stated that he is naming species on Mars so that today’s schoolchildren can relate to them, because they will constitute the first generation of Mars explorers.


The Mars-Egypt connection

PIA10214 contains images of artifacts from an ancient civilization on Mars that had a connection to Ancient Egypt. One of the images Basiago has isolated from PIA10214 is a sarcophagus shaped like a king. He is wearing a conical hat like the one worn by Nefertiti on the iconic bust of her that Ludwig Borchardt found at Amarna, Egypt in 1912.

One theory about the connection between Ancient Egypt and Ancient Mars states that the two planets were once verdant and shared a common human culture, when elements of the Vela supernova entered the solar system around 9,500 BC, fracturing Mars and devastating its ecosystem, while impacting Earth and ending the great maritime civilization on this planet that Plato refers to as “Atlantis.”

Copies of The Discovery of Life on Mars, Basiago’s letter to the National Geographic Society, and his other MARS research papers are available at www.exopolitics.com.
 

Webre: Founder of exopolitics champions Mars disclosure

After making his discovery of life on Mars, Basiago teamed up with fellow lawyer Webre to lobby for disclosure by the US government that life exists on Mars and to foster the international environmental law and policy development that is now needed to protect it.

According to Webre, NASA is staging a disinformation campaign to hide the evidence of life on Mars. It is doing so by altering the scale, color, and brightness of its images from Mars and by announcing minor discoveries on Mars that mask major ones.

NASA’s goal, he said, is to comply with the decree set by the CIA’s Robertson Panel of 1952-53, which required US intelligence agencies, including NASA, to “debunk” evidence of extraterrestrial life.

Webre is a veteran of the extraterrestrial disclosure movement. He is the author of Exopolitics, a book credited with founding the science of relations between our human civilization and other intelligent civilizations in the Universe.

It was as a futurist at SRI that Webre, a Fulbright Scholar educated at Yale, designed an alien-human communication study for the Carter White House in 1977. Today, he is the International Director of the Institute for Cooperation in Space (ICIS) and a co-author of the international treaty banning weapons in space.

“Now that we have proved that life exists elsewhere in the Universe, humanity’s planetary quarantine has ended,” Webre stated.

“We must now act in accordance with the Exopolitics model that the Universe has intelligent, evolving civilizations, operating under universal law, with governance systems, mediated by Universe politics, and agree that such a model must guide how we deal with Mars.”

Protecting Mars from visitation by human beings from Earth

The crusading lawyers contend that Mars has a beautiful environment worthy of international protection.

The solar system catastrophe that befell Mars left it with a fragile, post-collapse ecology that will be vulnerable to harm by visitors from this planet.

The Mars missions planned by the Earth’s space-faring nations – presently the United States and Russia, but one day including Japan, China, India, and the ESA – could do irreversible harm to Mars’ life forms and ancient artifacts.

Basiago and Webre are advocating that the Precautionary Principle be applied to Mars’ environment and the Prime Directive to its civilization.

The space-faring nations will be asked to examine Basiago’s evidence of life on Mars, acknowledge that life exists on Mars, and agree that Mars should be placed under a UN protectorate administered in consultation with the nations visiting Mars.

Webre noted that UN General Assembly decision 33/426 (1978) provides authority for the establishment of an international agency that would coordinate terrestrial relations with the civilization that exists on Mars.


MARS: Coming to a group of Earthlings near you

MARS is now preparing to take its NASA-derived photographic evidence of life on Mars and its proposals to protect Mars to university campuses, churches, and civic groups.

Basiago and Webre have produced a fascinating 90-slide Power Point Presentation entitled The Discovery of Life on Mars: Uncovering a NASA Cover-up and begun delivering it in 90-minute lectures at speaking engagements around the world.

The presentation includes never-before-seen images showing bizarre life forms and breathtaking ancient artifacts on Mars, discusses the implications of the discovery of life on Mars, and tells how the discovery is causing a paradigm shift in human thinking.

It then presents a thoughtfully crafted agenda in law and public policy that is responsive to life on Mars and a situation that humanity has never confronted before in its history – our first contact with another inhabited planet in the Cosmos.

Basiago will be presenting MARS’ convincing case for life on Mars at the ECETI conference in Washington State over the July 4th weekend, and Webre will be presenting it at the European Exopolitics summit in Barcelona, Spain on July 25th-26th.

Labels: MARS Takes Its Case for Life on Mars to the American People

HOW TO DETERMINE BEINGS IN THE PHOTOS
(THE PHOTOS WERE NOT COPYABLE - BUT ARE PRINTABLE

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/15330440/mars---how-to-find-humanoid-being-in-the-rock-enclosure---1-7-09-1