They’re Green
Dark spots spread across the floors of Martian craters every spring, peak in summer and fade by winter. A European orbiter photographed them in colour – and at their largest, they are green. Physicist and astronomer Tom Van Flandern walks through the Mars Global Surveyor images that made Arthur C. Clarke say he was 95% sure there is vegetation on Mars.
Frame by frame: a high-resolution strip that drops from the plains into a stained crater, straight tracks that run for hundreds of kilometers yet refuse to cut through craters, a right-angle turn with growth following every bend, and tall branching shapes that cast their own shadows – the ones Clarke called the Martian trees.
Natural geology, or something alive on the red planet? Watch the images and decide.
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:55 Mars Global Surveyor and a Stained Crater
5:35 Black Spots That Follow the Seasons
7:46 Tracks That Avoid Every Crater
10:45 Arthur C. Clarke’s Martian Trees
YouTube link: https://youtu.be/Pt80fj6DHh4?si=8dL1LBKKst-hjjNC