The worm, turned

Sometimes, it's OK to say that some claims are just plain dumb. Case in point: on Hoagland's website, it is claimed that there is a giant glass worm lying on the surface of Mars. If you have not heard this claim before, I will let you take a moment to breathe in the ridiculosity of this. Yes, a worm. And not a regular sized worm, but a giant one. And not made of, say, protoplasm, but glass. Now, to be fair, they use the word "worm" as an analogy. Sometimes. Of course, with Hoagland, it's hard to tell if he's being serious or not, because everything on his site is so silly. In the link above I pretty thoroughly debunk this silliness. But of course the Worm lives on in crank websites and in the hearts and minds of pareidolia-stricken conspiracy theorists everywhere. They still claim it's real, and it's a worm. Or, at least, it's a raised feature on Mars and not a gully. The thing is, truth has a way of being persistent. When you get better data, the lies fall away and the truth remains. Which brings us to the HiRISE images in a crater just south of Parana Basin on Mars. Take a look: