Hi Mike

Letter from Kevin

I received this letter from Kevin and was thrilled to see the content. Kevin must think a lot like me since he obviously tries to find the overview of situations, which is something I value as a philosopher. I agree with most of what Kevin says, yet there are several areas that are open to interpretation, and the Frass Meteorite gives me evidence of Mars life unavailable to others. I will make my comments in blue type between the text of Kevin's letter. If I don't make a comment, it generally means that I agree with what he has said. I very much appreciate Kevin, his thinking, and his letter.

Hi Mike,

I believe that currently, the most likely places to find life on Mars are several feet below the soil generally, and at less depth as you increase in latitude, until the point where life may be available at the surface in the polar regions. If I hadn't seen the Frass Meteorite, I would have to agree. But after studying the glassies, which have been found growing inside the Frass Meteorite, without benefit of light or liquid water, I now think that this form of life has evolved to handle the harsh conditions on the surface of Mars. Since they appear alive and have grown in Petri dishes here on Earth, I have to assume that these creatures were able to withstand the radiation and cold of space and make the trip from Mars to Earth alive in the Frass Meteorite. I currently think these creatures are all over the surface of Mars and the photos from the two Rovers seem to back me up. Other places to find life would include the poles, any canyon bottoms, any active volcanic vent sites, and possibly the tube-like structures that seem to criss-cross some of the surface of Mars. This mostly has to do with the locations of liquid water, and water ice at just below the freezing point. Also the ambient vapor pressure of the water and other volatiles would potentially be more contained under the conditions and in the regions described ( at depth, encased by soil or rock and well away from Mars' extremely thin surface atmosphere that tends to quickly and strongly desiccate wetted material; and at increasing latitudes, and thus with decreasing average temperatures, which lowers the vapor pressure of volatiles ).

Had you ever heard the theory as to why Mars lost its once much heavier atmosphere ? Here is what I think has happened on Mars, based on the evidence of the Frass Meteorite and other evidence gained from NASA and other sources. The atmosphere on Mars was generated originally by volcanic action, just as was the case on Earth. Of course you are correct in stating that the internal "fires" of any planet are directly proportional to the size of the planet. The more mass, the more energy that is generated to heat the planet. In the early days, the volcanoes were very active and created an atmosphere that was probably more dense than that of current Earth. The surface of Mars became cool and ready for life much earlier than did the Earth and so life started there first. In an infinite cosmos, life "rains" down on new planets from the asteroids and comments which are the remains of old exploded suns and planets that once lived in the past. These objects contain the remnants of life that once lived on those old planets and this makes a seed to start life on new worlds. So life evolved on Mars and was powered more by the volcanic energy than energy directly from the sun. After a period, a large asteroid impacted the planet and disrupted the atmosphere. Over time, the large volcanic system reconstituted the atmosphere and life survived the first cycle. Over time the cycle was repeated five or six times and each time, the atmosphere and liquid water came back and life evolved to handle these large extremes of environment. I think evidence for this comes from the glassy creatures which seem adapted to the surface of Mars. I don't this adaptation could take place with just a single cycle of wet/dry, and so must have evolved through multiple sessions of going between times of moisture and times where liquid moisture was hard to find. With this in mind, let's look at Kevin's big picture.

The earth even had the luxury of being able to LOSE a big fraction of its mass, forming earth's binary companion planet, the moon, formed from the lighter outer layers of the primordial earth after a catastrophic impact. I know the impact model of our moon's creation is curently the favored model by most scientists, but I can't resist the elegance of Tom Van Flandern's models of planetary and moon formation by the "spinning ice skater" model. As a spinning skater pulls in his or her arms, the speed of the rotation increases. Similarly, Tom has proposed that new suns begin spinning faster as heavier elements move towards the center of the body. As this acceleration increases, the speed of the spin increases until part of the crust of the object is thrown off as a satellite. Tom proposes that "liquid" bodies like the sun and Jupiter generally release pairs of satellites while more solid bodies, like the Earth, release only single satellites. Since this model is more general and doesn't require the long odds of the planetary impact model, I like it better. However, this really doesn't affect Kevin's argument and is just a side note. ( The earth had already experienced sufficient heating throughout its mass, for just a long enough time that the elements and minerals were well differentiated enough to create an outer layer of light- weight minerals, mostly Sodium and Potassium silicates, that were eventually blown away and coalesced to form the moon. Earth's heavy elements fell to the core, Iron, Nickel and the ' heater ' being radioactive elements Uranium and Thorium and their by- products. )

Mars' mass was small, and thus Mars had a smaller core mass, the Nickel- Iron- Uranium heat generator/ radiator that drives many geological processes on both Mars and the earth. But earth's core was much more massive, and continues to drive geological activity, and shall do so for another two billion years. Mars' core cooled down much more quickly than did earth's. I agree that Mars has cooled down more rapidly. I just think this process is still continuing and that the planet Mars is still an active body in the solar system. Scientists now think that Olympus Mons was active as little as 100 million years ago and the Frass Meteorite clearly shows that volcanic action was still taking place as little as 13 million years ago. This is because Mars started out with a much smaller core, and also had a much larger surface- area- to- mass ratio than the earth ( Mars' smaller diameter ), and so Mars radiated its smaller internal heat much more quickly than earth did. Also, the earth has a thicker insulating layer on top of all that, whereas Mars has a much thinner mantle between the core and the surface. Mars radiated its heat away much more quickly, let alone generating much less total heat. However, it is very important to realize that Mars probably transferred much more heat to its smaller surface much more rapidly during the period it actually had produced the heat. In other words, Mars probably experienced a far greater scale of quite hot, very intense global geological activity, which then burned itself out very quickly. So that Mars was a ' flash- fire ', where earth was a slow cooker or crock- pot. Both involve heat, but in very different ways. Mars' shorter history of intense internal heat activity created this solar system's grandest volcano, as you may know, Olympus Mons. Mars was hot and then cooled rather soon, unlike Venus which has both an earth- like mass and close proximity to its star. ( Venus' large mass well contains internal heat, and her atmosphere retains external heat, her outer crust getting thoroughly scorched from both directions, and her geology shows it. )

So, did Mars' internal heat generator operate for a long enough time for Mars to evolve indigenous life somewhere ? Yes Were conditions on the surface appropriate at just the right times and in the right places and in just the right combination of ways ? Yes The odds of life evolving on Mars are undoubtedly somewhat lower than what they were for the earth. Of course this statement assumes that life must evolve on every planet separately, when I think the evidence indicates that life is everywhere in an infinite cosmos and need not evolve independently on every planet. Evidence of life "parts" in comets, asteroids, and even in the upper atmosphere of Earth itself, all point to a cosmos where life is abundant. Thus, it is possible Mars' planetary evolution had too many windows of opportunity close too soon or too suddenly, for all the necessary steps to fall into place and overlap generously in whatever time allotted. Again, if I didn't have the evidence of the Frass Meteorite, I would have to agree with his statement. But the evidence in the meteorite clearly shows that Mars has had life for its entire existence. This means that life overcame whatever problems it faced on Mars and is very much there today.

One thing Mars did have was a much denser atmosphere in its past, which is where we began this discussion. Interesting enough, the Frass Meteorite lava that is 49 million years old appears to have been in a denser atmosphere than does the lava made only 13 million years ago. The older lava has much smaller vesicles and was found next to an apparently blind flying insect. I don't know it there is enough atmosphere on Mars now to support flying insects, but at some point in the not too distant past, Mars did support enough atmosphere to support flight.

All during its early history, while Mars' core was still molten, the core generated a magnetic field. Maybe not as stable and as consistent and well organized as the earth's magnetic field, but it did generate one nonetheless. Mars still has a small active core. Although Mars no longer has a planetary magnetic field, it does have several smaller local magnetic fields. The Frass Meteorite must have been in one of these local fields when it was created, as it is slighted magnetic. The biggest problem for Mars' atmosphere seems to be it was a short- lived magnetic field that disappeared as the core froze. While the electric dynamo is up and running in the core and generating any magnetic field at all, the atmosphere benefits by being shielded from the solar wind by the presence of the magnetic field. Since Mars is farther from the sun than the earth, Mars needs less magnetic flux present to deflect the solar wind around its side facing the sun. You see, it is the solar wind that works to erode a planet's atmosphere, literally blowing it away bit by bit across the eons in its movement through space. If there are no mechanisms at work to replenish such atmospheric losses (Again, I think the volcanic systems were able to regenerate the atmosphere for much of the planets history and the Frass Meteorite indicates that there may have been an atmosphere as little as 49 million years ago) , a couple of billion years can give an atmosphere a good working over, and rub it out until virtually nothing is left. ( Except of course for the rare Helium -3 desperately clinging to the otherwise inert rocks which absorbed the same solar wind impacting the earth's moon ! )

And earth has seen heating of a sufficiently gradual and usually moderate nature, over such a long time period, that life itself was able to emerge. Having retained water and atmosphere and heat and chemical balance in stability, life formed and remains on the only home we absolutely know for life. I think these same forces acted on Mars. But Mars has almost run its course as an "active" planet and is in its final dying stages.