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Plasma physicist and nuclear weapons specialist John Brandenburg has an out-of-left-field theory about two gigantic hydrogen bomb-type nuclear explosions that supposedly took place on Mars within last hundred million years. He points to overabundance of radioisotope Xenon 129 that results from fission of heavy nuclei as evidence. Xenon 129 is a signature of nuclear explosions and exists in Earth's atmosphere because of the atmospheric nuclear testing and plutonium production that had gone on in the twentieth century. It is also made in supernova explosions as a result of intense neutron bombardment and is therefore embedded in asteroids and meteoroids within the Solar System. John Brandenburg claims that the only way the amount of Xenon 129 that is inferred from 1976 Viking Mars mission data and verified by mass spectrometer on Curiosity rover could have been produced in the distant past is by the way of nuclear explosions. No meteor showers could explain this because meteors contain both Xenon 129 and 132 in equal quantities and the amount of Xenon 129 contained within them is tiny and gets released only at very high temperatures. Mars has 2.5 times more Xenon 129 than Earth's atmosphere prior to 1937 (no nuclear production) and the meteorites. He points to two sites on the Red Planet where the hypothetical explosions took place: in the Northern plains in Mare Acidalium at approximately 50N, 30W, near Cydonia Mensa and in Utopia Planum at approximately 50N 120W near Galaxias Chaos.
He was a recent guest on The Space Show, where he reiterated his theory. It's a long podcast and nukes on Mars talk starts at 47 minutes into the show.
Here is a link to his paper and his website.
He also gave a presentation to a packed auditorium at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) 2016 about a different theory of his:
Mars in one Month: The GEM theory of Energy and Momentum Exchange With Spacetime and Forces Observed in the Eaglework Q-V Thruster
Wacky, but interesting, no?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 11 2017, @02:29PM (2 children)
There's quite a lot of isotopic evidence, not just one Xenon isotope, that seems to fit one way we know of, to generate exactly that peculiar signature, but it requires at least an industrial era civilization to produce at great effort, and unless the biologists and geologists have gotten it horribly wrong we were not here to do it, so somebody else did it ... I mean I'm just saying "magic" and "miracle" is possible but its fascinating that the least unlikely, least unrealistic cause is aliens setting off bombs.
Its an interesting "active SETI" idea for a paranoid space faring culture to plant something artificial but noticeable along the lines of "you must be this tall to go on this carnival ride" and then see what the young species does in response. If they produce a Klingon conquering fleet of space battleships, however pitifully crude babys first 1.0 spacecraft, then the paranoid old civilization can nuke em from orbit just to be sure because thats a species thats gonna be a PITA.
If we're being observed its probably a good idea to act in a reasonably sane manner when provided with a really weird artifact like this.
Another novel interpretation is a fraction of billion years ago some neighbor thought it would be intimidating to us, and perhaps anyone else, to observe the nuking of a distant planet, to keep someone (us?) in their place. Kinda like how the USA nuked a bunch of pacific islands, not because we thought badly of the islanders, we didn't really think of them at all, it was more of a demonstration for others far away and for all time of what we can do when we feel the need. "Now I'm not saying you can't send infectious interstellar nanobots to our planet, because clearly you can and have, but before you send the next wave, turn your telescopes to the uninhabited fourth planet in the Sol solar system, jus sayin..."
Or a sci fi book plot thats a bit over done is you transmit a SETI signal hundreds of millions of years ago "Yo for a good time make a plutonium sphere 100 Kg mass its perfectly safe and a good time but wait theres more for this limited time SETI offer, if you order and build it today, it also provides eternal life, infinite gold, bitcoins, and lots of light" and that's one way to test gullibility or something like that. I'm just saying if there's space aliens then there's probably Ferengi, probably more of them than Klingons, and getting blown up is probably morally and ethically better than getting economically screwed by the Ferengi.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 12 2017, @02:13PM (1 child)
I disagree. There's a lot of spin here on the current isotope evidence, but I strongly disagree that it fits in "one way".
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday October 13 2017, @12:17PM
Well, what is there? fission byproducts (appears to be no negative info so far), random chance (appears unlikely, but possible), creationism as a test of (which groups?) faith, and the ever popular "unknown".
Another interesting sci fi book plot... benevolent aliens know there's a a rough patch that industrial civs go thru when they invent nuclear weapons but before they have robust multi planetary solar system scale civilizations where they can get wiped out, so policy is any planet with life more advanced than algae gets a lifeless neighbor planet nuked the crap out of so the young civilization can get scared straight by paranoia about world wide nuclear war, which would hurt a bit until you get multiple planets at which time people can avoid diversity which causes wars by simply moving to planets too far away from each other to fight. OR they're anti-benevolent aliens and they observe this strategy usually backfires. Hmm. Either would make an interesting book.