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