072019b

Happy 50th


don't track dirt
into this lander
I don't care
where it came from
were you raised by wolves?

060519c

first human
sets foot on Mars
tire tracks everywhere

112518b

under a kilometer of ice

kraken moves
maw gaping

sweet metal snack
oxygen burns 
all the way down

stars shine into world ocean
thru closing hole
the boiling sea

what the monster rules
no longer everything

no longer enough

083018d

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ultima-in-view-nasa-s-new-horizons-makes-first-detection-of-kuiper-belt-flyby-target

rumors of a sun
warm Ultima Thule
New Horizons comes

020718b

NASA's pace

a snail would beat them
to Mars

young guns horning in
booster ballet, dummy at the wheel
I am holding my breath

010518c

Burrows on Mars? http://www.leonarddavid.com/curiosity-mars-rover-investigates-eye-catching-odd-features/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social#?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=2016twitterdlvrit

We already know Mars has gravel that was almost certainly deposited by flowing water, can critters be far behind?

 I should say that an origin of these marks by burrowing is highly unlikely. Chemically fragile crystals (such as those of evaporite minerals) are commonly dissolved and replaced by sand or other materials. This is a common process, and doesn't require organisms to produce it.


It would be astounding and wonderful to find proof that multicellular life has existed on Mars, but it is far more likely that we will find proof that minerals have been dissolved and replaced.

Send your name to Mars

On NASA's Insight

https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/participate/send-your-name/insight/

100617d

under a billion year beach
Mars's frozen ocean
green with life



On discovering that there may be a lot more water on Mars than we ever suspected.

011917b

NASA found some possible mud cracks on Mars


If these are desiccation fractures,
then there was mud, there was water,
3 billion years or so ago,
this is a science poem,
no fiction in it,
but on the three photographs they posted,
unconvincing mud cracks, I must say,
centrally displayed,
off to the right on one I saw some wiggles,
tiny, parallel, wrinkles,
runzelmarken, those are called,
wrinkle marks, to the Anglophone geologist;
they form when wind blows across very shallow water,
water over mud, whose surface
holds together just a bit;
here on earth what does that
is called a microbial mat:
microbes, buddy!
Microbes on Mars,
3 billion years ago,
and why not now?
Why not now?


https://www.facebook.com/NASAJPL/photos/pcb.10154414335168924/10154414335058924/?type=3&theater