
Evidence for nuclear explosions on Mars [pdf] - lsh123
http://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2015/pdf/2660.pdf
======
huxley
Brandenburg's been focused on this for a while, here is his 2011 theory that
it was a natural fission reactor:

EVIDENCE FOR A LARGE, NATURAL, PALEO-NUCLEAR REACTOR ON MARS. J. E.
Brandenburg

[http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2011/pdf/1097.pdf](http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2011/pdf/1097.pdf)

However, over time he has been getting deeper and deeper into pseudoscience.
It was covered in Pharyngula a while back:

[http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/11/22/the-two-
faces-...](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/11/22/the-two-faces-of-je-
brandenburg/)

~~~
api
I heard an interview with Brandenburg a while back. He sounded sane, smart,
and his understanding of physics seemed sound.

I can't stand this secular inquisition bullshit of cherry picking any sign of
possible 'out there'-ness and using it to completely trash peoples' entire
bodies of thought and work. It's anti-scientific. Please point out a problem
with Brandenburg's actual published work, or go away. Even if he does hold
non-traditional or strange religious beliefs, it's not relevant. Roman
Catholicism is no more rational than Eastern mystic cults, so do we throw out
all scientific papers by Roman Catholics?

I'm not much of a fan of PZ Myers either. I read him a bit back during the
mid-2000s 'intelligent design' creationist PR offensive, but stopped reading
him as he got more and more shrill and irritating. IMHO Myers is as much a
shrill fundamentalist as the religious bozos he constantly wars with.

One interesting thing Brandenburg did say was that when he came to believe
himself that Mars had been nuked, possibly in act of "biosphere genocide," the
realization that this might have actually happened plunged him into a bit of a
metaphysical crisis. He immediately thought of the Fermi Paradox, and that
maybe the reason we're not hearing/seeing anything is because there are big
nasty genocidal intelligences out there that 'cull' anything interesting from
the universe. He said he actually got very depressed, and got deeper into
religious/mystical stuff as part of this.

That doesn't sound crazy to me, just human. Around here we've seen some IMHO
irrational fears of super-human dangerous AIs circulating recently, and it
seems to have led to a similar amount of metaphysical anxiety among some very
brilliant and notable people in the CS field.

I'm very skeptical of Brandenburg's thesis here, but I have to admit that the
evidence he puts forward is very interesting. It either points to what he says
-- some kind of incredibly ancient use of a nuclear device -- or an as yet
undiscovered natural phenomenon that can yield a similar signature.

One possibility (other than 'reaper' aliens) I can think of would be a natural
nuclear reactor that actually went fully supercritical and detonated. Another
would be a hypervelocity object, possibly traveling at some significant
fraction of the speed of light, that impacted Mars and went thermonuclear in
the atmosphere on kinetic energy alone. Maybe an asteroid or comet that got
flung by a high-gravity body (black hole? neutron star?) or supernova debris
could do that?

~~~
huxley
> "One interesting thing Brandenburg did say was that when he came to believe
> himself that Mars had been nuked, possibly in act of "biosphere genocide,"
> the realization that this might have actually happened plunged him into a
> bit of a metaphysical crisis. He immediately thought of the Fermi Paradox,
> and that maybe the reason we're not hearing/seeing anything is because there
> are big nasty genocidal intelligences out there that 'cull' anything
> interesting from the universe. He said he actually got very depressed, and
> got deeper into religious/mystical stuff as part of this.

> That doesn't sound crazy to me, just human."

I linked to a reasonable article by him to establish that he wasn't just a
nut, but we'll have to agree to disagree on his metaphysical crisis, because
the speculation that anomalous levels of radiation in parts of Mars is due to
"big nasty genocidal intelligences," that sounds Dianetics-level bonkers to
me.

I think he's drawn attention to some very interesting data, but that's where I
get off the bus.

Update: I actually watched the video he did with Supreme Master TV, give it a
look and judge it for yourself:
[http://youtu.be/NBuN3uHnjYY](http://youtu.be/NBuN3uHnjYY)

~~~
gknoy
I think "Dianetics-level bonkers" might be overly harsh.

If one believes the radiation anomalies are from nuclear explosions, it seems
at least remotely plausible that they came from off-planet (because who would
do that to their own?). At that pointpoint it's not entirely lunacy to
consider the existence of genocidal aliens.

None of that means that any of those are true, but each seems to be an
explanation that might occur to any normal person who accepts the preceding
points. The idea of genocidal aliens has been part of our cultural zeitgeist
for some time -- isn't that the premise of Mass Effect?

~~~
actsasbuffoon
Uranium deposits can (under the right circumstances) can form a natural
nuclear fission reactor:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor)

Occam's Razor dictates that the simplest answer is probably correct. What's
simpler:

    
    
      A) This is the result of a naturally occurring process that has happened on our own planet.
      B) Aliens
    

I'm as excited as the next sci-fi fan to shake hands with aliens, but this
isn't even remotely close to a reasonable argument.

~~~
yiyus
Aliens would be the result of a naturally occurring process that has happened
on our own planet too. But yeah.

~~~
actsasbuffoon
Not only are you correct, but you made me laugh like a lunatic in front of my
co-workers. You've won twice today.

------
mullingitover
The idea that nuclear weapons are what sterilized Mars is _insane_.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought it was because Mars' core
cooled, which caused its magnetic field to go away, resulting in all its water
floating off into space. No water = sterile planet. You could shoot every
nuclear weapon in the world at the Earth and life would still easily carry on
(maybe not multicellular, but life nonetheless), but take all the water
away...

~~~
Netcob
Let's start at the beginning. The paper talks about evidence for nuclear
explosions (the word "weapon" isn't mentioned as far as I can see), and then
discusses natural nuclear reactors
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor)

The author then argues that the evidence seems to fit an atmospheric explosion
better, for example an asteroid that exploded in mid-air like in Tunguska. Or
that the radioactive stuff just got there in this pattern through geological
activities and other processes.

Did I miss the part where he talks about nuclear weapons or sterilization?

~~~
mhurron
> Did I miss the part where he talks about nuclear weapons or sterilization?

Yes, it's in a different link where he 'furthers' his work.

[http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/PSF14/Session/G1.3](http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/PSF14/Session/G1.3)

------
doubleyou
Containing my excitement in case this is an early April Fools joke... but if
this has anything to it at all it will call for an entire re-reading of many
ancient texts, particularly the Sumerian, which describe war on Mars
(primarily between contentious relatives a la Macbeth [a story in itself
repeated in almost every culture independently]), a migration to Earth, and in
the devastation, the complete destruction of a planet in our solar system, the
remnants of which allegedly became our asteroid belt. This story has been
repeated in a handful of ancient cultures in very specific detail.

We are the aliens!

 _explosion_

~~~
el_zorro
I'm going to ignore so many things in this post and just point out that there
is not enough material in the asteroid belt to create another planet. All
said, the asteroid belt is about 4.5% the mass of the moon, or a quarter of
Pluto [0].

[0]
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=mass+of+the+asteroid+be...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=mass+of+the+asteroid+belt)

~~~
doubleyou
Thank you! What an embarrassing bout of ignorance on my part... I should have
done just a _little_ bit of research...

------
octatoan
The xkcd was nice.

