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Much more conclusive photographic evidence can be found here

> Anyone find a higher quality image?

No problem:
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07110

Great description. One comment I have is that these plumes can cast a shadow, see this image of the Prometheus plume (a smaller plume about 75-100 km height): http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA00703 .

Nearly all of the material that is ejected in this plume returns to the surface and forms a giant red ring surrounding Tvashtar. Here is an image that shows the effects of a similar eruption in 2000 and 2001: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02588 As far as what it would look like, we don't have a higher resolution image of the plume, but the plume source was well imaged by Galileo during several encounters in 1999, 2000, and 2001. The source is a curtain of lava, very similar to what you might see at Kilauea in Hawaii. Here is a graphic showing two views taken during those Galileo encounters: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02584 The image on the left shows the fire fountain eruption from 1999 (the actually fire fountain is a drawing of what it would have looked like if the eruption weren't so bright, it saturated the detector, see http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02519 for the original image). During the New Horizons encounter, a similar fire fountain event occurred at the same site (as evidenced by the glow from the lava being visible, during daytime, at visible wavelengths, from a spacecraft 2.5 million km away!) and was the source of the plume linked in the article above. Jupiter's rings are formed through micrometeorite impacts on the surfaces of its inner satellites, particularly Metis and Adrastea. There is a torus of plasma (mostly sulfur and oxygen ions) sharing Io's orbit, but the material for that ring, if you can call it that, comes from Io's atmosphere, not from Io's volcanoes directly. Only 1% of the material ejected by Io's volcanoes reaches escape velocity, while most of the material is ejected at a maximum of 1 km/sec. (compared to Io's escape velocity of 2.6 km/sec.)

Nearly all of the material that is ejected in this plume returns to the surface and forms a giant red ring surrounding Tvashtar. Here is an image that shows the effects of a similar eruption in 2000 and 2001: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02588 As far as what it would look like, we don't have a higher resolution image of the plume, but the plume source was well imaged by Galileo during several encounters in 1999, 2000, and 2001. The source is a curtain of lava, very similar to what you might see at Kilauea in Hawaii. Here is a graphic showing two views taken during those Galileo encounters: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02584 The image on the left shows the fire fountain eruption from 1999 (the actually fire fountain is a drawing of what it would have looked like if the eruption weren't so bright, it saturated the detector, see http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02519 for the original image). During the New Horizons encounter, a similar fire fountain event occurred at the same site (as evidenced by the glow from the lava being visible, during daytime, at visible wavelengths, from a spacecraft 2.5 million km away!) and was the source of the plume linked in the article above. Jupiter's rings are formed through micrometeorite impacts on the surfaces of its inner satellites, particularly Metis and Adrastea. There is a torus of plasma (mostly sulfur and oxygen ions) sharing Io's orbit, but the material for that ring, if you can call it that, comes from Io's atmosphere, not from Io's volcanoes directly. Only 1% of the material ejected by Io's volcanoes reaches escape velocity, while most of the material is ejected at a maximum of 1 km/sec. (compared to Io's escape velocity of 2.6 km/sec.)

Nearly all of the material that is ejected in this plume returns to the surface and forms a giant red ring surrounding Tvashtar. Here is an image that shows the effects of a similar eruption in 2000 and 2001: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02588 As far as what it would look like, we don't have a higher resolution image of the plume, but the plume source was well imaged by Galileo during several encounters in 1999, 2000, and 2001. The source is a curtain of lava, very similar to what you might see at Kilauea in Hawaii. Here is a graphic showing two views taken during those Galileo encounters: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02584 The image on the left shows the fire fountain eruption from 1999 (the actually fire fountain is a drawing of what it would have looked like if the eruption weren't so bright, it saturated the detector, see http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02519 for the original image). During the New Horizons encounter, a similar fire fountain event occurred at the same site (as evidenced by the glow from the lava being visible, during daytime, at visible wavelengths, from a spacecraft 2.5 million km away!) and was the source of the plume linked in the article above. Jupiter's rings are formed through micrometeorite impacts on the surfaces of its inner satellites, particularly Metis and Adrastea. There is a torus of plasma (mostly sulfur and oxygen ions) sharing Io's orbit, but the material for that ring, if you can call it that, comes from Io's atmosphere, not from Io's volcanoes directly. Only 1% of the material ejected by Io's volcanoes reaches escape velocity, while most of the material is ejected at a maximum of 1 km/sec. (compared to Io's escape velocity of 2.6 km/sec.)

As I quoted from NASA, these volcanoes do NOT erupt like volcanoes on Earth. From my post...

"Io has lots of thermal areas just like Yellowstone," says JPL's Bill Smythe. "The volcanic plumes get most of the attention but there are probably also things like fumeroles and geysers. On a previous flyby the Particles and Fields instruments saw a deficit of energetic particles over Io where gas was probably coming out of the surface -- but no plumes were seen. We call this the 'stealth plume hypothesis.' The closest Earthly analog to what's happening would be a water geyser like Old Faithful. In fact, if you put Old Faithful on Io it would be about 37 km high!"

Which was not from a wikipedia junior article, but from http://science.nasa.gov/NEWHOME/headlines/ast04oct 99_1.htm again, as I previously posted.

Otherwise, your information is very scientific and appears well researched.

Not sure where you read what you read, but it is obvious that you did not RTFA, since from the article we learn...

"Boosaule Mons, which at 18 kilometers (11 miles) is the highest mountain on Io and one of the highest mountains in the solar system, pokes above the edge of the disk on the right side." ... and although this is not the height of the volcano that is erupting, it points to structures on Io that are larger than anything here on earth.

You might have read this...

"Unlike most moons, Io has a "young" surface. Because there is so much volcanic activity, the surface is almost free of craters. Also, its volcanoes are quite unusual. Instead of erupting like a normal volcano, they erupt more like geysers do on earth." ...from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior_Solar_Syst em/Jupiter/Io ...or you might have read this though...

"Io has lots of thermal areas just like Yellowstone," says JPL's Bill Smythe. "The volcanic plumes get most of the attention but there are probably also things like fumeroles and geysers. On a previous flyby the Particles and Fields instruments saw a deficit of energetic particles over Io where gas was probably coming out of the surface -- but no plumes were seen. We call this the 'stealth plume hypothesis.' The closest Earthly analog to what's happening would be a water geyser like Old Faithful. In fact, if you put Old Faithful on Io it would be about 37 km high!" ...which came from http://science.nasa.gov/NEWHOME/headlines/ast04oct 99_1.htm and only indicates that due to conditions on Io, a familiar geyser on earth would eject matter quite high. However, with this data from the article...

"the cloud of volcanic debris, which extends 330 kilometers (200 miles) above the moon's surface. Only the upper part of the plume is visible from this vantage point - the plume's source is 130 kilometers (80 miles) below the edge of Io's disk, on the far side of the moon." ... we can safely infer that the volcanoes erupting on Io are not similar to earth geysers in size, rather only in how they erupt.

Volcanoes on Io are rather different in general from their Earth cousins. From Wikipedia...

"Io's surface is dotted with volcanic depressions known as paterae. Paterae generally have flat floors bounded by steep walls. These features resemble terrestrial calderas, but it is unknown if they are produced through collapse over an emptied lava chamber as with their terrestrial cousins. One hypothesis suggests that these features are produced through the exhumation of volcanic sills, with the overlying material either being blasted out or integrated into the sill. Unlike similar features on Earth and Mars, these depressions generally do not lie at the peak of shield volcanoes and are normally larger, with an average diameter of 41 km (25½ mi), the largest being Loki Patera at 202 km (125½ mi)." ... in other words flat holes in the ground slightly similar to sinkholes. So personally, I wouldn't look forward to an eruption from the still active Loki, at a diameter of 125 miles. I mean, I wouldn't look forward to sitting ringside to that.

The relevant image isn't even close to being "true color" as a human would see it, based on the weird color of the surrounding rock versus the conventional rendering that is used. Furthermore, the relevant spot (its location is easy to match up by the shape of the cracks in the bedrock to the slightly left of center in this Burns Cliff panorama in Endurance Crater) isn't even horizontal, and the rover practically drove over materials that are of the same composition (you can see its tracks to the right in the image above, and some of them cross the same sort of dark material between cracks in the bedrock, leaving wheel tracks).

It's very obviously darkish orange-brown dust. The paper is bogus.

The relevant image isn't even close to being "true color" as a human would see it, based on the weird color of the surrounding rock versus the conventional rendering that is used. Furthermore, the relevant spot (its location is easy to match up by the shape of the cracks in the bedrock to the slightly left of center in this Burns Cliff panorama in Endurance Crater) isn't even horizontal, and the rover practically drove over materials that are of the same composition (you can see its tracks to the right in the image above, and some of them cross the same sort of dark material between cracks in the bedrock, leaving wheel tracks).

It's very obviously darkish orange-brown dust. The paper is bogus.

Both Shuttle and the ISS are brighter than the brighest stars. Maybe not quite as bright as Venus, though.

Try looking for them, even if you think it's not dark enough. High elevation and long duration in that table make for the best viewing.

Actually I had these same feelings when I first saw the the images of the landing of the NEAR probe on Eros (note the final image). There was silt so fine that it flowed like a liquid and even looked like it had surface tension. This reminded me of when I was a kid I had seen fine silt mud settle out in water with a similar effect. Some very interesting physics must be going on the surface of Mars and the asteroids. Particles the size of colloids interacting like molecules to form a quasi liquid?

Bad bad analogy. There is plenty of light on an overcast day. But still the sea looks grey. Light is being scattered / reflected from the surface not from underneath. Gees. Basic physics guys. At the angle that we see the surface of a sea then we will usually be seeing reflected / scattered light from the sea. In sunlight where the light has a dominant source then the colour we see may reflect the colour of the water itself if we are at an angle to make the transmitted (back scattered) light from the depths greater in intensity than any reflected from the surface. So if you are in a boat the sea on the horizon will look very different to the sea right over the side ... especially with direct sun at midday.

As for the topic in question. The tracks in the original image do indeed look like they have gone through a puddle. How it could survive in the near vacuum is interesting ... maybe it is very salty.

Here's the HUGE version of that panorama: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/oppor tunity/20041213a/Burns_Cliff_L257T-B313R1.jpg (just take the "_br" off of http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/oppor tunity/20041213a/Burns_Cliff_L257T-B313R1_br.jpg)

Here's the HUGE version of that panorama: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/oppor tunity/20041213a/Burns_Cliff_L257T-B313R1.jpg (just take the "_br" off of http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/oppor tunity/20041213a/Burns_Cliff_L257T-B313R1_br.jpg)

Here is a picture of it in its original b&w glory from another angle.
With the rover driving over that area.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/1/n/285 /1N153484776EFF37MIP0757R0M1.JPG

It does look a lot like track prints in mud.

Why are they still arguing about the existense of water on Mars?
Definitive proof was found long ago!

The original pictures do look like they are on a slope and it does look like sediment in them. Plain water can't stay liquid for very long at Mar's near vacuum. So the question is what water solutions can stay liquid at that temperature and pressure and for how long? Mars is by no means wet. It is mostly dry, but that doesn't mean it's not damp in spots.

Looking at the very hi-res version of the panorama reminds me of damp soil. If it were shallow liquid the shadows would look different in them I think. There are a few spots that looks like a thin layer of water flowing across sand, but that's what my experiences tell me, so it doesn't necessarily translate into Mars geology, er areology.

It'll be interesting what the explanation turns out be. I would start of with the assumption that it's an artifact of the photo manipulation, and that we'd like it be a water solution of some sort. Then we must do what we can to eliminate our prejudices and artifacts to get to the real story. Whatever it really is will be far more surprising than we can imagine.

Am I really the only one here who actually played in the dirt as a kid?

Originally an outwash plain during the final ablation phase of a glacier, the 5+ wild acres I grew up on as a kid had a variety of clay, soil, and silt types. This "OMG, there's water on Mars!" reaction has come up at least once before here on Slashdot, after someone posted a link to a photograph that showed dark plumes spilling down a small incline. Some of the reactions here depressed me back then too. Have so many people really become so disconnected from the earth that they can't recognize ultra-fine silt when they see it?

Ok, so fine ... let's assume you don't have first hand experience with how liquid-like dry silt can be. Just today I read an article on Nasa's site that got me thinking about this topic. It's about how one of the rovers has again had its solar panels cleaned off by wind. If Martian winds can pull that trick off, clearly wind erosion must be ongoing on Mars, and has been going on for what, BILLIONS of years? Now...

without any liquid water...
without any biological activity...
without any volcanic activity...

...but with that wind erosion, what would be the lowest limit for particle size on the Martian surface?

Let me put this another way: there has been an erosional force running on that planet for a billion plus years, to this day, and no force (at least on the surface) is present to conglomerate or cement those particles back together. This, to me, means that all surface particles must be being eroded down to some lower limit in silt particle size. I bet there's all kinds of weird and wonderful physics going on down at that level, but I'm digressing.

Folks, as apparently the only person here on Slashdot who's ever played with dry silt, I have some sad news for you: I would be shocked if there weren't patches around that didn't look a heck of a lot like liquid.

Here's another story to contemplate: do you remember when one of the Mars rover's got stuck? The NASA engineers went off to the hardware store to recreate the soil conditions, and picked up things like dry cement powder and diatomaceous earth. And you have to remember that Mars' gravity is what, 1/3 that of Earths? Come on kids ... it's nice to dream and all, but what we're dealing with here -- again, at least on the surface -- is one very dry surface that has a heck of a lot of ultra-fine silt lying around in a low gravity environment.

Mars: where a dry surface flows like water.

I meant to add: There are more shots of the same scene on the Sol 279 page. These are from a different angle, and if you cook up a way to view stereoscopic pairs ( I used MS Paint ) you can see that the "water" surfaces are far from flat, as well as being inclined, of course. Try this left and right pair, which shows the top part of Levin's image viewed from the right side. The horizontal blue portion of Levin's "puddle" on the upper right is seen to have significant relief in this pair. You can actually see this by looking back and forth between the left and right images of the pair, if you don't feel like going to the effort of stereo viewing.

I meant to add: There are more shots of the same scene on the Sol 279 page. These are from a different angle, and if you cook up a way to view stereoscopic pairs ( I used MS Paint ) you can see that the "water" surfaces are far from flat, as well as being inclined, of course. Try this left and right pair, which shows the top part of Levin's image viewed from the right side. The horizontal blue portion of Levin's "puddle" on the upper right is seen to have significant relief in this pair. You can actually see this by looking back and forth between the left and right images of the pair, if you don't feel like going to the effort of stereo viewing.

I meant to add: There are more shots of the same scene on the Sol 279 page. These are from a different angle, and if you cook up a way to view stereoscopic pairs ( I used MS Paint ) you can see that the "water" surfaces are far from flat, as well as being inclined, of course. Try this left and right pair, which shows the top part of Levin's image viewed from the right side. The horizontal blue portion of Levin's "puddle" on the upper right is seen to have significant relief in this pair. You can actually see this by looking back and forth between the left and right images of the pair, if you don't feel like going to the effort of stereo viewing.

There is a series of images from the Panoramic camera on Sol 290 which closely match Levin's image, including this one. These do have filters on them, but I think Levin has his own ideas about Martian colors.

It seems that the colored composite picture shown in newscientist's article was derived from these two original left-right pictures from Opportunity's navigation cameras on day 285. There are many more similar pictures around day 285, with these flat paths around the flat stones. In the 'Burns Cliff' Color Panorama (high res), the newscientist's image is just a fraction of the cliff: it's in its very center, where you can see a V and the steepness of where it is located.

1) The surface just seems a bit too steep to me to accumulate any liquid water in such amounts for a pond, since it's facing up the border of the crater in the original pictures. The rover was taking the picture from the bottom up, so also the material wasn't in the lowest part of the terrain.

2) In the original JPL's pictures, you can see the same 'watery' material all way up to the border of the crater: it's distinctly darker. In the panorama, it's interesting to note that it doesn't go all the way down to the bottom of the crater, where you can see a brighter dust covering everything.

Does this darkness means humidity? I fail to see streaming water, maybe flat thin ice sheets from a humid surface but this seems to be explicitely discarded when the author says that "If they were ice or some other material, they'd show wear and tear over the surface, there would be rubble or sand or something." (btw, sand on this steep cliff?) A very thin dark powdery sand looks more likely, but someone needs to go there and poke it to be sure. Any ideas about this? I'm unable to find the original paper to have a look at it.

Can anyone explain how they came up with the bluish hue in the composite picture, since the original pictures do not seem to have any filter information? (the 25th character in their names is 0 instead of some specific filter frequency)

It seems that the colored composite picture shown in newscientist's article was derived from these two original left-right pictures from Opportunity's navigation cameras on day 285. There are many more similar pictures around day 285, with these flat paths around the flat stones. In the 'Burns Cliff' Color Panorama (high res), the newscientist's image is just a fraction of the cliff: it's in its very center, where you can see a V and the steepness of where it is located.

1) The surface just seems a bit too steep to me to accumulate any liquid water in such amounts for a pond, since it's facing up the border of the crater in the original pictures. The rover was taking the picture from the bottom up, so also the material wasn't in the lowest part of the terrain.

2) In the original JPL's pictures, you can see the same 'watery' material all way up to the border of the crater: it's distinctly darker. In the panorama, it's interesting to note that it doesn't go all the way down to the bottom of the crater, where you can see a brighter dust covering everything.

Does this darkness means humidity? I fail to see streaming water, maybe flat thin ice sheets from a humid surface but this seems to be explicitely discarded when the author says that "If they were ice or some other material, they'd show wear and tear over the surface, there would be rubble or sand or something." (btw, sand on this steep cliff?) A very thin dark powdery sand looks more likely, but someone needs to go there and poke it to be sure. Any ideas about this? I'm unable to find the original paper to have a look at it.

Can anyone explain how they came up with the bluish hue in the composite picture, since the original pictures do not seem to have any filter information? (the 25th character in their names is 0 instead of some specific filter frequency)

It seems that the colored composite picture shown in newscientist's article was derived from these two original left-right pictures from Opportunity's navigation cameras on day 285. There are many more similar pictures around day 285, with these flat paths around the flat stones. In the 'Burns Cliff' Color Panorama (high res), the newscientist's image is just a fraction of the cliff: it's in its very center, where you can see a V and the steepness of where it is located.

1) The surface just seems a bit too steep to me to accumulate any liquid water in such amounts for a pond, since it's facing up the border of the crater in the original pictures. The rover was taking the picture from the bottom up, so also the material wasn't in the lowest part of the terrain.

2) In the original JPL's pictures, you can see the same 'watery' material all way up to the border of the crater: it's distinctly darker. In the panorama, it's interesting to note that it doesn't go all the way down to the bottom of the crater, where you can see a brighter dust covering everything.

Does this darkness means humidity? I fail to see streaming water, maybe flat thin ice sheets from a humid surface but this seems to be explicitely discarded when the author says that "If they were ice or some other material, they'd show wear and tear over the surface, there would be rubble or sand or something." (btw, sand on this steep cliff?) A very thin dark powdery sand looks more likely, but someone needs to go there and poke it to be sure. Any ideas about this? I'm unable to find the original paper to have a look at it.

Can anyone explain how they came up with the bluish hue in the composite picture, since the original pictures do not seem to have any filter information? (the 25th character in their names is 0 instead of some specific filter frequency)

It seems that the colored composite picture shown in newscientist's article was derived from these two original left-right pictures from Opportunity's navigation cameras on day 285. There are many more similar pictures around day 285, with these flat paths around the flat stones. In the 'Burns Cliff' Color Panorama (high res), the newscientist's image is just a fraction of the cliff: it's in its very center, where you can see a V and the steepness of where it is located.

1) The surface just seems a bit too steep to me to accumulate any liquid water in such amounts for a pond, since it's facing up the border of the crater in the original pictures. The rover was taking the picture from the bottom up, so also the material wasn't in the lowest part of the terrain.

2) In the original JPL's pictures, you can see the same 'watery' material all way up to the border of the crater: it's distinctly darker. In the panorama, it's interesting to note that it doesn't go all the way down to the bottom of the crater, where you can see a brighter dust covering everything.

Does this darkness means humidity? I fail to see streaming water, maybe flat thin ice sheets from a humid surface but this seems to be explicitely discarded when the author says that "If they were ice or some other material, they'd show wear and tear over the surface, there would be rubble or sand or something." (btw, sand on this steep cliff?) A very thin dark powdery sand looks more likely, but someone needs to go there and poke it to be sure. Any ideas about this? I'm unable to find the original paper to have a look at it.

Can anyone explain how they came up with the bluish hue in the composite picture, since the original pictures do not seem to have any filter information? (the 25th character in their names is 0 instead of some specific filter frequency)

It seems that the colored composite picture shown in newscientist's article was derived from these two original left-right pictures from Opportunity's navigation cameras on day 285. There are many more similar pictures around day 285, with these flat paths around the flat stones. In the 'Burns Cliff' Color Panorama (high res), the newscientist's image is just a fraction of the cliff: it's in its very center, where you can see a V and the steepness of where it is located.

1) The surface just seems a bit too steep to me to accumulate any liquid water in such amounts for a pond, since it's facing up the border of the crater in the original pictures. The rover was taking the picture from the bottom up, so also the material wasn't in the lowest part of the terrain.

2) In the original JPL's pictures, you can see the same 'watery' material all way up to the border of the crater: it's distinctly darker. In the panorama, it's interesting to note that it doesn't go all the way down to the bottom of the crater, where you can see a brighter dust covering everything.

Does this darkness means humidity? I fail to see streaming water, maybe flat thin ice sheets from a humid surface but this seems to be explicitely discarded when the author says that "If they were ice or some other material, they'd show wear and tear over the surface, there would be rubble or sand or something." (btw, sand on this steep cliff?) A very thin dark powdery sand looks more likely, but someone needs to go there and poke it to be sure. Any ideas about this? I'm unable to find the original paper to have a look at it.

Can anyone explain how they came up with the bluish hue in the composite picture, since the original pictures do not seem to have any filter information? (the 25th character in their names is 0 instead of some specific filter frequency)

It seems that the colored composite picture shown in newscientist's article was derived from these two original left-right pictures from Opportunity's navigation cameras on day 285. There are many more similar pictures around day 285, with these flat paths around the flat stones. In the 'Burns Cliff' Color Panorama (high res), the newscientist's image is just a fraction of the cliff: it's in its very center, where you can see a V and the steepness of where it is located.

1) The surface just seems a bit too steep to me to accumulate any liquid water in such amounts for a pond, since it's facing up the border of the crater in the original pictures. The rover was taking the picture from the bottom up, so also the material wasn't in the lowest part of the terrain.

2) In the original JPL's pictures, you can see the same 'watery' material all way up to the border of the crater: it's distinctly darker. In the panorama, it's interesting to note that it doesn't go all the way down to the bottom of the crater, where you can see a brighter dust covering everything.

Does this darkness means humidity? I fail to see streaming water, maybe flat thin ice sheets from a humid surface but this seems to be explicitely discarded when the author says that "If they were ice or some other material, they'd show wear and tear over the surface, there would be rubble or sand or something." (btw, sand on this steep cliff?) A very thin dark powdery sand looks more likely, but someone needs to go there and poke it to be sure. Any ideas about this? I'm unable to find the original paper to have a look at it.

Can anyone explain how they came up with the bluish hue in the composite picture, since the original pictures do not seem to have any filter information? (the 25th character in their names is 0 instead of some specific filter frequency)

It seems that the colored composite picture shown in newscientist's article was derived from these two original left-right pictures from Opportunity's navigation cameras on day 285. There are many more similar pictures around day 285, with these flat paths around the flat stones. In the 'Burns Cliff' Color Panorama (high res), the newscientist's image is just a fraction of the cliff: it's in its very center, where you can see a V and the steepness of where it is located.

1) The surface just seems a bit too steep to me to accumulate any liquid water in such amounts for a pond, since it's facing up the border of the crater in the original pictures. The rover was taking the picture from the bottom up, so also the material wasn't in the lowest part of the terrain.

2) In the original JPL's pictures, you can see the same 'watery' material all way up to the border of the crater: it's distinctly darker. In the panorama, it's interesting to note that it doesn't go all the way down to the bottom of the crater, where you can see a brighter dust covering everything.

Does this darkness means humidity? I fail to see streaming water, maybe flat thin ice sheets from a humid surface but this seems to be explicitely discarded when the author says that "If they were ice or some other material, they'd show wear and tear over the surface, there would be rubble or sand or something." (btw, sand on this steep cliff?) A very thin dark powdery sand looks more likely, but someone needs to go there and poke it to be sure. Any ideas about this? I'm unable to find the original paper to have a look at it.

Can anyone explain how they came up with the bluish hue in the composite picture, since the original pictures do not seem to have any filter information? (the 25th character in their names is 0 instead of some specific filter frequency)

Actually, the pancam isn't completely black-and-white: http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/mission/spacecraft_inst ru_pancam.html

...soon we'll have more SuitSats to listen for!

(SuitSat1 was a worn-out Orlan [Russian space suit] with some batteries and a transmitter inside that the ISS crew literally kicked out the door. You could hear it transmitting its internal temperature, battery power and 'elapsed mission time' on the 2M band.)

Actually having worked for the company http://www.spectrumastro.com/ that built Deep Space 1 http://nmp.nasa.gov/ds1/tech/sep.html. It has been in use as a main propuslion system since 98. There was a 'gas' tank that held xenon that was the source of the propulsion.

I was 12 (IIRC) when the original series with Scotty came out. In the middle 1960s, the "communicators" were fantasy. Now we have cell phones. Doors that magically open were likewise impossible, but now they're at every grocery store. As were the voice activated computers with flat screens. As were a host of other impossible things on that show we now take for granted.

In at least one respect, something that was "impossible" in the twenty fourth century is now commonplace. In one of the movies, McCoy gives Kirk a pair of reading glasses because he's allergic to whatever drug geezers used to soften the eye's focusing lens. Curing it was impossible in the Star Trek future, but in 2003 the FDA approved a device called a CrystaLens, an eye implant that cures cataracts, nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism! I had one implanted in my left eye. After wearing glasses all my life, then in middle age wearing both contact lenses for my nearsightedness and reading glasses for my age-related farsightedness, I no longer need any corrective lenses at all, although I still wear a contact in my right eye. I'm looking forward to getting a cataract in that eye so insurance will pay most of the cost of getting my eye fixed. What Dr. McCoy couldn't do for Kirk, my eye surgeon, Dr. Yea, did for me!

As to all the science being magic and/or bullshit, you might want to read an artticle on NASA's web site titled The Science of Star Trek.

-mcgrew

Nasa's Deep Space 1 first used ION Propulsion several years ago. http://nmp.nasa.gov/ds1/tech/sep.html

There was this date, right, the 11th of September in 2001, that caused the airline industry in the states to be shut down for some time. 36,000 - 40,000 flights PER DAY. Interestingly, planes cause quite a lot of pollution (and, as it turned out, significantly contribute to cloud formation)[PDF]

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the shutdown depressed the overall emissions figures.

I've yet to be convinced that human factors are accounting for the current rise in global temperatures. However, I think it's irrelevant - the massive CO2 production, and the lesser mentioned waste heat production) is clearly unsustainable in the long (or even medium) term. I quite like Ireland the way it is now, and we'd be pretty severely affected by a rise in sea levels or change in the Gulf Stream. At the moment, Nuclear appears the only way to go, and surely there are realistic ways of getting rid of the waste (for instance, disposing of them on fault lines a-la David Brin). Even without that you cannot tell me that there is no way of filtering the output from power plants with the technology available today. There just needs to be the will to do it, and the costs can be shared, surely, between governments and private industry.

Interestingly, China recognise the problem for all that they're mulish in public. They're planning 2,000km of MagLev track instead of laying conventional rail - it's safer and apparently more efficient. They're also cutting down on road building in favour of other transport mechanisms. Centralising power generation means it can be controlled at the source, and if that's not happening now it can happen in the future.

The problem is that the debate is so political now that there will be no consensus on how to fix it, and the EU, US, India, China, Russia and everyone else will just go their own way - or not bother. Another problem is that the Gaia theory is not really taken into account - if it's right (I personally think it is) then the earth is a self regulating system, or at least a balanced system. Without understanding the system, pretty much anything we do is doomed to failure, and much research is focused on a very small section of the overall system (because the overall system is so complex). But it IS a system, and we need to understand all the inputs into that system, and their effects on the system until we can make definitive statements about climate.

But it's *beneath* the surface of Titan. Not much opportunity for surfing there.

However, if you wanted to surf the methane seas of Titan, that appears somewhat possible, though you'd need an extraordinarily well-insulted suit, and, if I recall correctly, you'd need some kind of floatation device because methane is much less dense than water (you'd sink to the bottom like a rock). Plus the whole breathing thing, I suppose.

...the Cassini-Huygens spaceprobe made a descent over two years ago onto Titan, the only moon in the solar system known to have an atmosphere.

...the Cassini-Huygens spaceprobe made a descent over two years ago onto Titan, the only moon in the solar system known to have an atmosphere.

A quick googling turns up http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/whycassi ni/cassinif-20070601-02.html,
an article with considerably more explanation, including that they are investigating through actual simulation whether it could be an artefact of the instrument.

Your post shows a complete lack of knowledge of how release of NASA technologies works.

NASA would LOVE for you to take their work and turn it into a new product or business. They have a whole office dedicated to it. See http://www.ip.nasa.gov/

Also, NASA already does have several open source applications (maybe you've heard of World Wind???), see http://opensource.arc.nasa.gov/

Your post shows a complete lack of knowledge of how release of NASA technologies works.

NASA would LOVE for you to take their work and turn it into a new product or business. They have a whole office dedicated to it. See http://www.ip.nasa.gov/

Also, NASA already does have several open source applications (maybe you've heard of World Wind???), see http://opensource.arc.nasa.gov/

Here you go: http://clickworkers.arc.nasa.gov/hirise

While true, there are ways of looking within the earth from outer space. Satellites can sense the variations in gravity/mass that are within planet surfaces, as with this: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a001000/a0010 89/index.html

Radar mapping can also go a bit into the earth, too:
http://www.eomonline.com/Common/Archives/1996sep/9 6sep_holcomb.html
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/mjff/silk _rd.htm

Though I've never heard of anything that goes down as deep as what this article claims, and I have my doubts about it.

What I mean by "proven wrong" is the prediction of a very well measured quantity, the spectral index of perturbations of the Cosmic Microwave Background. The WMAP satellite has taken data for about 6 years (and is still taking data) and the spectral index has been measured to be 0.951 + 0.015 - 0.019 : http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_mm/pub_papers/threeyear .html

The Ekpyrotic model makes an actual prediction for the spectral index; the value is -3. Initially the authors of the ekpyrotic model have calculated a value of 1 for the spectral index, but their calculation was just plain wrong.

Like the cure for cancer, AIDS is a common banner to rally around, although 25 million people have died of AIDS since it was first recognized in 1981, while malaria causes disease in approximately 400 million people every year. (Wiki AIDS and Malaria)

Everyone has their pet projects, and each can be argued as more important than the other, but in the end technology intended for one purpose benefits other areas as well.

This excludes NASA's research, which has produced nothing of applicable scientific or medical value, except of course those neat temperature sensitive foam beds. Who really needs MRIs, CT scans, or improved biopsy techniques anyway?
http://newemployee.hq.nasa.gov/html/hr/spinoff.htm

There's also a separate PlanetQuest distributed computing project that will allow people to search for planets from home using data from ground observatories.

There's also a separate PlanetQuest distributed computing project that will allow people to search for planets from home using data from ground observatories.

There should be lots of data from nasa, its not like they can miss the south pole.

Hmm, sounds a lot like NASA World Wind ( http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/ ) - Landsat7, 3D globe, free data. And hi-res ortho imagery to boot. So what am I supposed to be excited about that's new?