The tidal model also contains a cautionary tale for future missions and investigations. In the current search for Mars’ elusive water reservoirs, already some investigators (Malin et al. – 1999) – based on a few high-resolution MGS imaging of very selected regions of the northern plains [87] have rejected the idea of “ancient oceans.” The absence of wide-spread, long-term oceanic features along the margins of the northern plains – for instance, fluvial-eroded scarps—argues in their presentations that Mars never supported long-term, liquid, wind agitated waters on those plains. And, in the current Martian models, if Mars ever had significant amounts of standing water (“oceans”), they would have had to occupy those currently-observed (from MOLA), low-lying northern plains.
But this is precisely opposite what the tidal model argues: that Mars’ long-term oceans were not centered around these current low-lying northern areas—but around Tharsis and Arabia, with a vast gap of dry land (including portions of the northern plains) between. Only when the tidal lock with Planet V was broken, do we contend that a vast amount of water rushed toward these low lying northern Martian regions. But, such waters would also have quickly evaporated and/or frozen – leaving no time to etch classic “oceanic signatures” across those plains.
The warning is quite clear: without the correct Mars’ model, future missions and investigations run the serious risk of looking in the wrong locations for the wrong surface features to test the wrong geologic models.
Likewise, an aggressive effort to locate fossils and/or evidence of former intelligence on Mars must focus on the correct regions in this model. Such investigations, if properly conducted, should ultimately lead to a confirmation of our now ~500 MYA timeline for Mars’ parallel biological development with Earth – the discovery of a variety of truly advanced indigenous fossils (some of them quite large), and/or even artifacts—only possible if the tidal model is substantially correct.
Conclusions
Richard Feynman was once quoted as saying “You know you’re on the right track with a new idea, if you put in fifteen cents and get two dollars back.”
The Mars tidal satellite model we’ve presented here is just such a “two dollar” idea. It for the first time accounts for a number of baffling, enduring mysteries about the Red Planet, while at the same time remaining consistent with each new observation—such as the recent equatorially constrained, bi-polar “dark stain phenomena,” and MGS observations of “recent” (<100,000 year) ice deposits near the Martian surface. [88]
Previously enigmatic Martian surface features are now elegantly and simply explained by the significant tidal forces to be experienced in such a captured orbit. These include a unique tidal erosion mechanism for the largest canyon in the solar system – Valles Marineris; the presence of two antipodal “bulges” in the mantle and crust of Mars – Tharsis and Arabia – raised by these major tidal forces over time; and the otherwise inexplicable bi-modal distribution of current fluvial signatures known as “stains,” as the fossil remnants of two former “bi-modal tidal oceans.”
The Mars tidal model also accounts for the presence of vast surface and deep, ancient water channels flowing northward from Valles Marineris, and now Tharsis; the vertical scarp encircling Olympus Mons; the otherwise inexplicable height and volume of the Tharsis volcanic uplift itself; the location of the Arabia and Elysium uplifts (at 180 and 90 degrees, respectively), from Tharsis; the formation of the Tharsis “trench”; the extreme difference in crustal thickness between the hemisphere’s above and below the “line of dichotomy”; the dramatic difference in cratering patterns between these same two hemisphere’s; and the sudden fluvial excavation of massive amounts of material from the Arabia Terra rise.
It also accounts for the otherwise inexplicable presence of high levels of iron, iron oxides, sulfur and olivine on Mars – all major signatures of some kind of external “collision/explosion event” recently in solar system history.
The authors fully acknowledge that certain secondary aspects of the tidal model may not be testable as yet. For instance, it may not be possible to precisely determine what precipitated the destruction of Planet V. Two possibilities have been suggested here: either, a devastating collision with another major object also formed in this general location of the early solar system; or, the outright explosion, via a literal “new physics,” of Planet V. Either mechanism results in the return of Mars to a free orbit of the sun circa 65MYA, as mandated by this model, and leaves vital surface clues (for follow-on missions, such as Mars Odyssey) as to this crucial sequence of events.
However, there is sufficient evidence now consistent with this model to strongly infer the prior existence of a “Planet V.” This is based on the clear signatures of its effects now visible in the topography and geology of Mars, as well as other bodies in the solar system. The lack of a currently verifiable mechanism for Planet V’s destruction in no way diminishes the wide-ranging implications of the striking evidence of its demise, nor the quiet surface testimony of its profound effect upon the body we call “Mars.”
Finally, there is significant evidence that Mars’ environment—as a tidally locked satellite for ~500 million years—created conditions astonishingly favorable to the evolution of advanced biology upon the planet. Recent rediscovery of decades-old Viking data, indicating the presence of microbes in the soil exhibiting a 24.66-hour Martian circadian rhythm, leave wide upon the possibility of much higher evolution not yet officially discovered. This includes the now distinct possibility, based on the eerie parallel of Mars reconstructed 500 MYA of evolution with the Earth’s, of even former intelligent inhabitants.
It is the opinion of the authors that the evidence of Mars as a tidal locked satellite is now sufficiently compelling to begin a major reassessment of our current view of Mars.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the following groups and individuals for their invaluable contributions to this research:
The Enterprise Mission Membership, for their continued invaluable support of this research.
Ron Nicks, for important discussions of the concept.
And Jill England and Effrain Palermo, for the vital statistical analysis on which the bi-modal “stain” model is based.
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