Salt on Mars

"Mars is covered by salt crystals that could have been left by ancient, evaporated lakes - and may hold signs that life once existed on the Red Planet.

A Nasa probe found signs of chloride mineral dustings in the southern hemisphere and believe they may have formed billions of years ago when water evaporated from soil or salty lakes.

This discovery, brought to light by a camera on orbital spacecraft Mars Odyssey - mapping the planet since 2002 - could be significant in the on-going search for life.

As a preservative, salt is a particularly good place to search for traces of organic traces.

Photographs - some using infrared wavelengths invisible to the human eye - show "fingerprints" of a tell-tale chloride mineral deposit in around 200 places in the ancient, heavily-cratered terrain of Mars's southern highlands.

Team member Professor Philip Christensen, of the School of Earth and Planetary Exploration at Arizona State University, said the most likely candidate for this mineral would be sodium chloride - "good old table salt".

He said many of the deposits lay in basins with channels leading into them - the kind of feature that is consistent with water flowing in over a long time.

The US research team believes the deposits formed about four billion years ago, when Mars was probably much warmer and wetter.

Dr Christensen said: "Salt is also an excellent means of preserving organic material, so if there was life present in the distant past, the signature might still be there."

The scientists say the areas with chloride minerals should be given a high priority for future rover missions to Mars.

Until now, journeys have largely concentrated on a handful of places that show evidence of clay or sulphate minerals.

Harvard University professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences Andrew Knoll, who was not part of the study, said the findings suggest water once flowed on the Martian surface but only as lakes, not oceans.

But he said despite this advance in information about the planet, the discovery carries "a double-edge sword for astrobiology".

"Water is the first sign that an environment might have been habitable, but waters that precipitate table salt on Mars would have been much saltier than any waters known to support microbial populations on Earth."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...in_page_id=1965

Just another small step the world seems to be away to realizing the truth.

What are your thoughts on Mars? Aliens still inhabit it? Did before but the planet died? Could we possibly be martians?

Strange experiences as a child

When I was a child I used to hear things when I was laying in bed, trying to sleep. I would've been around 6 or so but I remember the sounds quite vividly.

It was as if I had people talking in my ear, saying things I couldn't quite make out, but it would fluctulate from just normal talking to really loud, ear-splittingly painful screaming. I used to shout for them to shut up and push a pillow over my head to drone out the sound and I suppose eventually it would stop or I would fall asleep.

What do you think it could have been?

It's my theory that everyone is born with some kind of psychic sixth "sense" and that it eventually becomes dormant over time (except for some people, which is where mediums and such come into play and animals) but I don't want to be so quick as to point at that and thus, am looking to see if there is any possible explanation for why I would've heard what I did.

I repeatedly told my mother every morning after that this occured and was given the same answer - "You're still growing, your ears are getting used to sound."

Yet I don't hear many other kids complaining they heard some kind of screaming.

New

Hey, am new to the forum and very interested in conspiracy theories, aliens, UFOs and related topics.

I have several theories of my own and will probably post on a load of topics.

*wave*