Golden Apple: The Mayan Omen. New From Goro Adachi

Goro's latest - Golden Apple:  The Mayan Omen.  Goro Adachi interprets multiple sets of highly symbolic narratives that are revealed in the form of Current Events.  And then he searches for deeper meaning from the narratives he unearths.  And then he tells us about it.  (If this is your first rodeo, go back to his very first posts and catch up.  Goro Adachi's writing needs context as to the perspective he presents, and there's no place like the beginning to gain said context.)

For Goro, it's been a busy, busy two months.  No excerpts;  Just go to the link and let him tell you about it.

Parts of Mars Interior as Wet as Earth's

That's a nice-sized puzzle piece, right?  Space dot com.  Excerpts, plus kickass stop motion video at link:
The interior of Mars holds vast reservoirs of water, with some spots apparently as wet as Earth's innards, scientists say.

The finding upends previous studies, which had estimated that the Red Planet's internal water stores were scanty at best — something of a surprise, given that liquid water apparently flowed on the Martian surface long ago.

"It’s been puzzling why previous estimates for the planet’s interior have been so dry," co-author Erik Hauri, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, said in a statement. "This new research makes sense and suggests that volcanoes may have been the primary vehicle for getting water to the surface."

The scientists examined two Martian meteorites that formed in the planet's mantle, the layer under the crust. These rocks landed on Earth about 2.5 million years ago, after being blasted off the Red Planet by a violent impact.

Using a technique called secondary ion mass spectrometry, the team determined that the mantle from which the meteorites derived contained between 70 and 300 parts per million (ppm) of water. Earth's mantle, for comparison, holds roughly 50-300 ppm water, researchers said.

"The results suggest that water was incorporated during the formation of Mars and that the planet was able to store water in its interior during the planet’s differentiation," Hauri said.

Some of this water apparently made its made to the surface in the ancient past. NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers, which landed on the Red Planet in 2004, have found plenty of evidence that Mars was far warmer and wetter billions of years ago than it is today.

The two golf-cart-size robots have even spotted signs of ancient hydrothermal systems, suggesting that some places on the Red Planet once had both water and an energy source — two key ingredients for the existence of life as we know it.

The video looks exactly like coastlines and water. See for yourself. Amazing. Mother Mars yields a few more of her secrets, and the Big Picture becomes a little bit clearer.

Are you a Martian?

We all could be, scientists say — and an MIT-developed instrument might someday provide the proof  Old article, but what the hell..  MIT News.  Excerpts:

Are we all Martians? According to many planetary scientists, it's conceivable that all life on Earth is descended from organisms that originated on Mars and were carried here aboard meteorites. If that's the case, an instrument being developed by researchers at MIT and Harvard could provide the clinching evidence.
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The idea is based on several facts that have now been well established. First, in the early days of the solar system, the climates on Mars and the Earth were much more similar than they are now, so life that took hold on one planet could presumably have survived on the other. Second, an estimated one billion tons of rock have traveled from Mars to Earth, blasted loose by asteroid impacts and then traveling through interplanetary space before striking Earth's surface. Third, microbes have been shown to be capable of surviving the initial shock of such an impact, and there is some evidence they could also survive the thousands of years of transit through space before arriving at another planet.

So the various steps needed for life to have started on one planet and spread to another are all plausible. Additionally, orbital dynamics show that it's about 100 times easier for rocks to travel from Mars to Earth than the other way. So if life got started there first, microbes could have been carried here and we might all be its descendants.

So..  Mission To Mars is partially a documentary?