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Supporting Evidence An Investigation Into The Possibilities Of Error Of paramount importance is the credibility of the data, methods, and interpretation used to arrive at my conclusions. I have undertaken a set of simple experiments aimed at dismissing the conclusions, and investigating the image data at its most fundamental levels. By replicating the imaging conditions with pedestrian materials and then performing the same image processing, I attempted to find flaws or difficulties with the methods and their results. Also, through a study of the kinetics and properties of various soil types and conditions, I attempted to explain certain observations that have been made given the panoramic and microscopic imager data. The results are here in a set of links that look at each potential source of error and then confirm or dismiss each in turn. This provides a scientific and reproducible set of experiments that even the layman can perform and understand. Note that my only assumption is a good one- that the laws of physics are constant on both Earth and Mars and that we will not see any upsets in how these things work on either world. These experiments are being performed and each will be reported here. Each subject will be a link in the near future. So far, every test performed has been supportive of my conclusions. Full results will be seen on this page. 1. Soil experiments - this is an investigation into the properties of soils 2. Imaging experiments - a technical reproduction of the microscopic imager and some of its data 3. Image processing methods - how reliable are the methods used to enhance the images? 4. Water, salt crust, and brine experiments - simple tests that reveal some of their properties 5. Vacuum chamber experiments - can vacuum dried mud reproduce the properties we see? 6. Clay, brine, and dirty ice - this can explain most of the Spirit observations 7. Various minerals and image artifacts - can non-biological minerals produce "fossil" traces? This page will show the results of each series of experiments as they progress NEXT (conclusions page) |