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Still More Evidence of Life of Mars
dirtyhank writes: "According to this article a group of Hungarian scientists have found another potential evidence of life on Mars. Apparently some groups of dark spots spread every martian spring. They say this could be caused by photosynthetic organisms."
So 2 billion years ago, a small class of organisms survived the collapse of Mars' attmosphere. And so many billions of years later a distant (and possibly radically different) relative of that organism still thrives (atleast during the spring). That's pretty cool.
This is a great scientific find (if these do turn out to be organisms), especially if by studying them we can figure out how they manage to survive at subzero temperatures. Considering we're over do for another ice age, that could come in handy.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
an high resolution view of defrosting dunes in the southern polar region of Mars used in this study is available on discovery.com here
Here is the
article I submitted yesterday.
If these do actually turn out to be life, then this is one of the largest discoveries that science had ever made. If there is life on Mars, then it is obvious that it is not that difficult to create life, and there is most likely life in other solar systems as well. Maybe it is more complex than this algae-type life is. This is truly amazing.
We'll crush any life we may find under our feet if need be, as we've done for the past 100,000 years or so.
-Legion
I don't know what you have been reading... but for humanity to choose suicide (effectively) over ecocide/extermiantion of another race? I have my doubts... Matter of fact, I believe the only way we wouldn't do it, is if we were killed off first.
Rykard
Breaking the Internet one standard at a time, since 1999
-Legion
According to the article "During harsh Martian winters, when temperatures plummet to minus-328 Fahrenheit, these so-called Mars Surface Organisms are protected by a thick blanket of ice which then melts as the planet's early summer temperatures climb to just above zero.
Large gray dark dune spots -- with a diameter ranging from 30 feet to several hundred yards -- are left behind.
These, the Hungarians claim, are dried-out organisms which can reactivate themselves once the colder, icy season sets in again."
... everything looks like a nail. "We cannot find anything else to explain it," said EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGST Tibor Gant. There are actually lots of seasonal changes on Mars that make colors and things - geologists and meteorologists have lots of explanations for them.
My understan7ding is that basic bacteria and other simple lifeforms transform certain chemicals into other chemicals using energy (usually sunlight). On Earth, the process is known to work because other organisms, usually higher in the food chain, degrade the new chemical back into the first kind of chemicals. It is also believed that the whole process was "jump-started" on Earth by incredibly high concentrations of primordial chemicals in the environment, high enough that the first unicellular lifeform would have time to both emerge then spawn other lifeforms to recycle the byproducts of its activity before the primordial chemicals would run out.
So, the question is, what's the theory with life on Mars ? obviously there has to be more than one lifeform, at least two, so that one degrades what the other produces. Strangely, I never see this issue appear in any life-on-Mars theory. Or do scientists assume a form of life that simply uses energy and consumes what it creates ?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Yes, they live on the the planet Nibiru (Planet of Crossing) which is, indeed, Planet X. It has an eliptical orbit, and passes between Mars and Jupiter every 3600 years.
"I mean, yes, we considered deposition and stripping of lighter-colored dust in a seasonal cycle related to wind patterns, which is a common phenomenon on Mars. And of course we pondered simple soil darkening due to partial ice melting; I mean, that's obvious, right? And we'd have been silly not to consider UV-catalyzed changes in soil chemistry which would occur in the spring as the UV-opaque ice layer thins or disappears.
"But," he continued, "Who's going to give us research funding for any of those? Life is our only ticket aboard the ESA 2003 mission. So, in funding terms, we literally couldn't think of anything else."
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
Rest assured these things I know. I'd really like to believe in that theory... I want to believe in that theory... but I am a skeptical, cycnical SOB, and I just can't, without seeing some unequivocal proof.
Rykard
Breaking the Internet one standard at a time, since 1999
Well... how many more years until I can see proof? Dammit, I don't want to live forever! I get bored easily
Rykard
Breaking the Internet one standard at a time, since 1999
They will need to prove that it is not from earth.
Any life on mars could have been carried up from a earth rock thrown up 65 Million years ago, when we were hit by a large one, or any number of other times.
Get a free ipod.
I hope they aren't trolls.
These brilliant scientists also hope to use their data to answer an age-old question closer to home. In a similar experiment, they'll use the same procedure to try and determine whether there is really life in Nebraska. Asked why, they replied "It is the next logical step. For decades, americans and people elsewhere in the world have wondered whether there is anything there, or if it is just some abysmal pit in the middle of nowhere. We hope to be able to answer that question for everyone." However, the scientific community itself is somewhaat divided over the next endeavor. Dr. James Greely, of the Helsinki Institute of Xenobiology states "Forget the fact that they are wasting precious grant money in an envriroment that has been rather uncommon in the current political enviroment. It's inconcievable that grown men would waste their time seeking life in a place like Nebraska. Of all the unlikely places they might search, this has to top the list, [in] the universe [all] over. They might as well search for intelligent life in the Whitehouse. They've got just as much chance of finding that..." Until they publish their conclusions, though, the world will have to wait. And wonder.
So we commit planetary suicide becuase we are afraid to contaminate a few lichens?
This is lunacy of the highest order.
Now we should check it out to make sure there are no instellar cruisers or bases under that sand. Don't want to piss off the neighbors, especially if they are better armed.
Besides, they have likely seen Our tv shows. No skeletons in our closet. We park them on the lawn to scare the neighbors.
[smile]
- - -
Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site using Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Mars is soiled with life, we cannot infect it with out own, for that would be interstellar ecocide.
Someone has been watching too many Star Trek episodes.
It could just be melting frost or ice under the surface. Who's to say?
"Where shall the word be found, where will the word resound? Not here, there is not enough silence." -T.S. Eliot
In the early days of astronomy, there was some rich guy (name escapes me) with a telescope who described 'canals' on Mars and dark blobs bordering them varying as the seasons, which he presumed were vegetation. Later nobody could ever find the dark patches or canals, so it was assumed that it was an optical illusion or something. Now, though no canals, they've found modern varying dark blotches. Another mistake, or has that guy been vindicated?
________
"And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion...." -- J.S. Mill
It would appear that these guys went out and saw John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars....
[for those that haven't seen it, it deals with a microorganism that is awakened by the terraforming being done by humankind to the planet]
The Alien
and the Shepherd Boy
A Shepherd Boy tended his master's flock of Sheep near a dark forest not far from the village. Soon he found lifeforms in the pasture to be very dull. All he could do to amuse himself was to talk to his dog or play on his shepherd's flute.
One day as he sat watching the Sheep and the quiet forest, and thinking what he would do should he see a Alien, he thought of a plan to amuse himself.
His master had told him to call for help should a Alien attack the sheep and the Villagers would come immediately and drive the Alien away. So now, though he had not seen a Wolf, he ran toward the village shouting at the top of his voice, "Alien! Alien!"
As expected, the Villagers who heard the boy's cry for help dropped their work and ran in great excitement to the pasture. But when they got there they found the Boy doubled over in laughter at the trick he had played on them.
A few days later the Shepherd Boy again shouted, "Alien! Alien!" Again the Villagers ran to help the boy only to be laughed at again.
Then one evening as the sun was setting behind the forest and the shadows were creeping out over the pasture, a Wolf really did jump out of the underbrush and leap upon the flock of Sheep.
In terror the Boy ran toward the village shouting "Alien! Alien! Alien!" But though the Villagers heard the boy's call, they did not stop working and run to help him as they had before. "He cannot fool us again," they said.
The Alien ate many of the Shepherd Boy's sheep and then escaped back into the dark forest.
The moral of the story is:
If you tell people there's life on Mars enough time they'll start giving you cash
-- SIGFPE
Based on what we know about life what you say is fairly true. However, it is what we don't know about how life is formed and in what forms it may take that will be clincher in discovering life other than our own. We know that for life to exist in a form that we know it, we need conditions that are similar to what we find on earth. However, there is no evidence to support a conclusive claim that life cannot exist in environments that are dissimilar from where we exist. Life may very well exist on mars, but it may be in a form we have yet to discover. Scientist are always looking for water as signs to point to the possibility for life elsewhere. Maybe there is another ideal chemical combination that may also harvest life.
If there is life there, and it's not of Earth origin, will it have DNA at all? Just because all life here has it doesn't mean that Martian-origin life will.
If you think lichen spots are cool, check out the trees of Mars.
Don't be so quick to judge -- in such a short article I wouldn't expect them to go into an indepth discussion, so we really can't know what they did and didn't take into consideration.
>We weren't created by no 'God' - we created by an alien race (who look just like us) who posed as gods.
Ahh... do You mean the Goa'uld? Have they got a stargate on Mars then eh?
JPL has Mars Global Surveyor images online, and this particular can be found at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/msss/camera/images/du ne_defrost_6_2001/index.html . Also included is a *truly* high resolution image. JPL's image commentary says that the features are defrosting and not life.
Malin Space Science Systems, the guys behind the Mars Orbital Camera, evidentaly have this explanation for it:
/ du ne_defrost_6_2001/index.html
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/msss/camera/images
"As winter gives way to spring in the martian southern hemisphere, the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) is observing the retreat of the south polar frost cap as sunlight falls upon it for the first time in several months. One of the most aesthetically-pleasing aspects of the spring defrosting process is the pattern that is created on the martian sand dune fields.
Dunes are usually among the first surfaces to begin showing signs of change in late winter when temperatures are just beginning to creep above -125 C (-193 F; 148 K). The pattern of spots on the dunes in the above MOC picture was observed on June 8, 2001. The location of the dune field near 62S, 155W, is shown in the color context view, which was acquired at the same time.
Dark spots and streaks on defrosting sand dunes were first observed by MOC in the northern hemisphere in 1998. Similar dark-spotted dunes in the southern hemisphere were described at a NASA/Mars Global Surveyor Space Science Update media briefing in 1999. Despite the "sensation" one gets when looking at pictures of spotted, defrosting martian dunes (i.e., the sensation that these images show some form of life, like vegetation, growing on Mars) these features are a normal, common manifestation of the springtime defrosting process on Mars. The ices involved--because of the low temperatures at these locations--are probably both frozen water and carbon dioxide, though it is unclear as to whether one type of ice dominates over the other in controlling the appearance and coalescence of the dark spots. It is known from the first martian year of MOC operations that by summer all of the frost--and thus all of the spots--on the dunes will be gone."
They gotta be green. REALY little green men :)
There are all sorts of possibilities. The temp differential in spring could be changing the reflectivity of the soil or something. Not that it ever gets warm--just changes from way below freezing to less way below freezing. The only way we will ever know will be to keep sending unmanned probes over there. (Don't expect manned craft in your lifetimes.) And probably before we ever know for sure, we will have infected Mars with Earthly life, and the question will be unanswerable forever.
What would really be cool would be if we found life that was not carbon based. I don't know much about biology but i do know that all of the life on Earth is carbon based. For all of the bio. heads out there, do any of you know what other types of life could theoretically exist? Life with a chrystaline structure? Gascious forms? I really don't know, and while these ideas may sound a little Star Trekish, so does the idea of life on Mars so please do respond.
We seldom regret saying too little but often regret saying too much.
*laugh*
In the spirit of free-as-in-chaos, I have instituted my own private moderation system. Under this system, I hereby give you +1 Funny.
--MarkusQ
L Ron Hubbard is on Mars, and John Travolta does not want us to know it. Tom Cruise would kill me if he knew who I was, blabbing this secret to you. I must post anonymously, or Kirsty Alley will club me with Pier One furniture and take me to Mars to confront Hubbard.
The dark spots start spreading in the spring, varying from 10 metresfeet)...
Whats a metresfeet?
Your sig:
s .htm)
"Nasty Little Truth About Spacetime Physics" (http://home1.gte.net/res02khr/crackpots/notoriou
As far as I can tell, this is much hot air to the effect that "time travel is motion through spacetime, which is impossible because it already contains time, so all the physicists talking about time travel are crackpots".
This seems rather silly, because what physicists actually talk about when they say "time travel" is simply a configuration of an object's world-line (graphed in spacetime) such that the world-line can intersect itself (or that the "future" light-cone from the world-line crosses some "past" part of the world-line, allowing communication, or any of a number of similar scenarios). This does not involve "motion" of the hypothetical fabric of spacetime; it's just a class of paths that objects can take within it.
Possibly I have misinterpreted the document, but this seems unlikely, as it makes it abundantly clear that time travel involves "motion" of spacetime, which "is impossible".
Can you clear up this apparent discrepancy?
So, unless we want to spend our entire lives sealed up in some grounded space capsule, while we try and wait for imported Earth life to thrive on a lifeless rock, we are going to need to settle on a planet that has life. Earthlike life. Ideally we'd find green plants that both produce oxygen and food.
I know the likely hood of this is small, but so does the idea of colonizing a rock that is incapable of supporting life.
Think about it. . . if there's NO life there, there's probably a reason.
Jonathan
Someone else mentioned Star Trek, presumably concerning the "Prime Directive." Ever notice that obviously no such "ideal" existed in the Star Wars universe. Civilizations seem to have gotten the space flight, weapon, and heavy sliding automatic door technology whereever they were in their development.
This is obvious proof of ancient astronaughts!
:^)
What we're seeing on Mars can only be the Bathroom Scum of the Gods! Think about it -- how many times have you cleaned the shower/toilet with chemicals that should kill all life, but next week it's back again? This must be the same sort of thing. Maybe the Gods showered after building Stonehenge, the pyramids, etc, but never cleaned up properly?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Because for something to move in spacetime (or in time) it would need to have a variable temporal coordinate.
First of all, to define "time travel," we must define "travel." Most laypeople define "travel" as "motion" relative to a frame of reference of a large rock. Because the spacetime geodesic of an object cannot move, I consider "travel" to be a region along the geodesic where it deviates from being parallel to its local surroundings.
As the parent described, what SF writers call "time travel" is not motion in time but rather a misnomer for a nearly closed loop in the object's geodesic. Do the equations allow that an object's geodesic may loop around and nearly cross itself, creating an effect that would be perceived as "time travel" under the lay definition of travel?
Will I retire or break 10K?
As the parent described, what SF writers call "time travel" is not motion in time but rather a misnomer for a nearly closed loop in the object's geodesic.
It does not matter. There is no motion along geodesics. I realize that this is taught in many relativity classes but it's a fallacy nonetheless. IOW, geodesics do not exist. It's an abstraction.
Do the equations allow that an object's geodesic may loop around and nearly cross itself, creating an effect that would be perceived as "time travel" under the lay definition of travel?
The equations only describe a static (invariant) historical mapping of events. There is no motion at all in spacetime. One can talk about motion in space but not in spacetime. Advanced relativists like Fanchi and Howrwitz (e.g., see the latter's invariant tau formalism) know that worldline time (tau) does not change.
The idea that one can extrapolate closed time loop from extreme gravitational spacetime curvature is ludicrous. It's even more absurd when people talk about traveling in the loop to a time in the past. Yet, this is what Kip Thorne and Hawking claim is possible.
Spacetime is an abstract math construct used for making predictions about the motion of a body in space and the internal speed of clocks. It does not represent anything in nature. If it did there would be no motion. Physicists have no idea why the construct appears curved in the presence of mass when they map distance and clock measurements on graph paper. Here is what Dr. Robert Geroch has to say about motion in spacetime in his book "Relativity from A to B (page 20):
"There is no dynamics within space-time itself: nothing ever moves therein; nothing happens; nothing changes."
So there you have it. In conclusion, it is fallacy that time changes. tau (worldline time) is invariant regardless of what you think your clock says. Clocks change and from that we obtain time intervals.
These recent photos taken of Mars show almost what looks like a civilization has formed on the planet. Scientists opposed to the idea of life on Mars claim that these building-like objects are merely rock formations. When asked about what looks like a major roadway, they declined comment.
I'm a minister!
"The idea that one can extrapolate closed time loop from extreme gravitational spacetime curvature is ludicrous. It's even more absurd when people talk about traveling in the loop to a time in the past. Yet, this is what Kip Thorne and Hawking claim is possible."
Interesting. One of the most brilliant physists in the world is wrong and you are right. Who would have thunk?
War is necrophilia.
But we have seen this before in human history, for example, the Ming Dynasty of China and the voyages of the eunuch Zhen He (Cheng Ho). China at that time had broken free from Mongol rule, and centuries of progress in engineering, science, arts, and philosophy could justify a Chinese feeling that the Ming Dynasty was the greatest civilization the Earth had ever seen. For seven voyages Zheng He captained a stupendous fleet that explored the coasts all the way to East Africa, trading and exacting tribute. In theory Southeast Asia, the surrounding islands, and the coasts of the Indian Ocean lay at China's feet.
The problem was that China was the center of civilization. There was no immediate reason to conquer and displace inferiors. What could they offer China? China had no incentive to put skin in the game. And since China's explorations were financed and controlled by the government, once the program lost favor with the leadership, all such exploration could be swiftly terminated.
Today's space craft sent to other planets or other outer space bodies are our equivalent of the voyages of Zheng He. For a generation the idea of exploring space captured the imagination of a rising and relatively rich civilization. But now the civilization is facing other concerns, concerns closer to home. And the civilization believes that it is the greatest of all time with no competitor on the horizon. The greatest science, the greatest engineering, the greatest arts, the greatest philosophy all permeate the civilization, one which can earnestly ask if it has reached the end of history.
And the civilization has a better alternate space program than one that could actually be physically constructed. Through the magic of special effects in television, movies, and games all potential space programs and futures can be experienced by the masses, the ultimate space program of the mind.
The cycles of history teach us that such a period of self-satisfaction turns into degeneration and finally collapse. After the wise king follows the corrupt sons and grandsons who cannot hold the kingdom together let alone promote expansion. The failure of this generation to take its shot at further manned space exploration means it will be a while until the next window of opportunity opens.
One of the most brilliant physists in the world is wrong and you are right.
You have no argument. You would rather attack the messenger than respond to the message. That's a cowardly tactic. But since you bring it up, there is always the possibility he's not as brilliant as you were led to believe. But what's the point of arguing with a cult follower?
We've got Texas and the South--no way the Martians are any better armed...
Give me half-a-hundred good ol' boys and I'll deliver you Mars sliced, diced and and packaged in individual bubble-wrapped servings.
It happened to me too.
I'm posting this as an AC cause even if I do HAVE a point, I don't want to lose my karma.
Well I posted yesterday a note about this, but, as usual got it rejected. So I will try to reproduce it and give some more detail.
These aren't news. It's great that Hungarian scientists made lines on the mass media, but, for years, people has been discussing the features and characteristcs of these "dark spots" or "dark dunes" as NASA terms it. They are all over the planet. From the poles to the equator, one can find miriads of this stuff. But there is a big problem with them. While some have features that highly remind dunes, the large majority of them are far from being interpreted as dunes. The problem is that these formations sometimes appear near to brighter and more earthlike dunes. However , while the "bright" dunes possess all characteristics of what we know about dunes, these ones have morphologies that sometimes go far away from the aerodynamical laws that create dunes.
One of the most scandalous features of the dark dunes is that their morphology frequently suggest that they form completely in the opposite direction of the "bright" dunes. As if wind is blowing 180 degrees opposite. NASA interprets this as if "bright" dunes were supposed to be older petrified ones. Great but there are two problems on this interpretation. First it is frequent to see dark dunes "hidding" behind hills, craters or big "bright" dunes. Second, the general erosive pattern on certain regions shows that the wind is still blowing the way "bright" dunes are formed. However dark dunes are there, and it is frequent to see them behind the most protected areas from windblows.
Meanwhile "weirdnesses" don't end here. There are many more. The most interesting is that, in some places like NW Hellas, one can see that dust devils uncover a very dark surface, probably a few centimeters underground. No matter, hills, valleys, dunes, boulders and cliffs, the dark devils leave in Hellas always dark paths. These paths are very dark and produce an intrictaed pattern. With time, these paths tend to brighten, however they brighten in a layered form, from the edges to the center. Besides, in some enhanced images, these brightening paths seem to possess a certain form of radiosity, like those we see in thunder rays. However this is hard to confirm for the moment as they appear very near the acceptable limit of resolution. So, for the moment, I would leave this as an interesting feature, not more.
On what concerns the claims of the hungarian scientists. They are great and they are probably doing a great job. But the problem is that this news passed nearly unnoticed. They didn't make front pages even on the Space sections of certain Internet mass media. In fact this and similar discoveries have been slightly silenced for quite long. An year ago, on a mail exchange with Dr. Van Flandern I have seen a very similar frame, and even then he was already suggesting a biologic possibility for these spots. I should note that many people here may have a very scheptical relation to Dr. Van Flandern. However, he is not the only one and there are other people who have a more conservative mind and still cannot avoid to think about this possibilities.
Mars is freezing death but one should not consider this as a "proof" that there is no life in Mars. In fact we have some places in Antarctida who also were thought to be completely sterile and still there are organisms that can survive there. And we alwyas thought that 100 degrees Kelvin kills all microbes but some still make a life above it and under pressures that would smash any human being.
Besides, there are problems with the well known Viking experiments. Some years ago, it was shown that the mass spectrometer could have been broken and Profesor Levin, one of the members of the Viking project and the creator of one of the biologic experiments, noted that palladium carried on the spectrometer instruments, could have destroyed the minimal contents of organics that the mars samples carried. Besides, on Viking Project, there was a situation when one of the members, consciously and deliberately, tried to destroy the work of one of his colleagues. I would suggest everyone to check up the life of Professor Wolf Vishniac, the pioneer of exobiology and the tragic fate of him and his experiment called "Wolf Trap".
So I consider the question of Life in Mars is still open. Are the dark dunes, living colonies of martians. Probably.
If there is life, we better make sure that Micro$oft doen't get there first! Two planets full of Windows is too much for me! ;)
42 + 1 = 42
Well on what concerns the moc picture. This is a very general view of the place but it shows one of the main features of the dark spots. These formations seem to love craters, specially in the equator. From the equator to the poles they tend to cover the craters, and sometimes one can see, mostly at latitudes above 45 degrees, craters that have a completely dark surface.
In a regional basis, these formations possess frequently a direction, probably dependent on winds. However, it seems the are also dependent on light or something else as there is a weirdness on their location. Northern craters and southern craters tend to have these spots located in opposite directions and seem to avoid the most intensive sunlight. Besides they "rotate" over the craters from equator to the poles. In the equator they are small and not so frequent, tending to be located over the edges of the craters. Going to the poles they start to cover a weider part of the crater. In a very very weird form. Like clocks...
It is difficult to explain this but I'll try. Imagine a nearly equatorial crater with very thin dark strips over the section where sunlight is less intensive. Now "move" that crater up to the pole. You will see that the dark patches start to cover more and more of the crater and most times over the direction of less intensive sunlight. Near the poles the crater becomes completely dark. Features inside the crater become smooth.
Now this happens over both hemispheres, North and South. But if ones compares south and north craters they look mostly symmetrical. However there are serious exceptions. Craters in a place called Acydalia Planitia seem likely to those seen on Shoutern Hemisphere. Apart of this widepsread "rule violation", other places seem to conform to this rule...
I'm not at all convinced that the presence of life would deter settlement, though I hope it would. But colonizing planets is a waste of time anyway. Why escape one gravity well just to sink into another? Why put up with marsquakes, dust storms, potentially virulent alien biology, and all the other rot one has to face on a planetary surface? Just build space colonies and have done with it.
Failing that, if you really insist on living on a dirtball, there are lots of available bodies in the Solar System which are guaranteed lifeless. We don't need Mars for that.
The rewards of discovering an intact alien ecosystem -- an entire new empire of life -- are far greater than any we could get from colonization.
Let's take a look at our planet. From the thin, far-out atmosphere to deep in the crust life has completely altered it from it's "natural" state. Our atmosphere is chock-full of reactive gases like oxygene and methane.
Now, imagine a life form on Mars... these guys with their telescopes talked about photosynthesis. Out of the question. It would show up as oxygene in the atmosphere.
The observed facts from the viking expeditions and all the latter expeditions point to a world without life. There is also no reliable indications that it ever existed.
Can you imagine a life form tha doesn't leave any observable trace? Remember that although we often think of individual lifeforms, we have to think of ecosystems in this regard, because life apart from an ecosystem, well...
There is no life on Mars. If there ever was, it didn't catch on. We've known the first for a long time, since some guy looked at the athmosphere and noticed there were no reactive gases. The second we have known since the viking expeditions.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Well some people have noted that I wrote quite a lot on this news. Well I have been on this stuff and frankly it hurts the flag to see some people caring too much about apparencies.
However I forgot to mention one detail. Well dunes, dunes and dunes. However I said that not everywhere we see "dunes". And forgot to mention why. There is a strange morphology on some of these dunes that doesn't go with the classical view of dunes. NASA and Malin say it is due to the physical characteristics of the dark sands. Not so, as no matter the nature of this dark, dunes are highly dependent on the dynamics of windblows. In places where one may find bright and dark dunes together. ne can see that they differ radically. Bright dunes tend to create the "classical" half-moon shape, while dark dunes are frequently seen as small hills with a morphology similar to the form of water drops. But that's not all. In some places, dark dunes create "bridges" among each other. These bridges are very thin. And usually connect the upper/lower edges of the dark dunes and not their extremes as it would be frequent on "usual" sand dunes. But there is something on these dark dunes that is more important than anything else. They overcome sometimes sharp land obstacles. They seem to jump over small but steep cliffs and unite dunes between each other.
Not all dark dunes look like this. Such dunes I described here are more frequent to be found on lower latitudes near the equator.
Hope I didn't bother you people too much. But please, forget about the tale that "There is and can't be no Life in Mars". Just leave the question open. Until we get more pragmatic and less political people aiming to find a soution.
You think it would have stopped with Jupiter. Damn monoliths.
Today's space craft sent to other planets or other outer space bodies are our equivalent of the voyages of Zheng He.
Leaving aside the Cold War competition, space exploration has always been pure science, that is, science practiced for the sake of knowledge without any expectation of commericial application.
In so far as space exploration is pure science, it is not analogous to of the voyages of Zheng He. They appear to be some combination of promoting national glory and establishing trade routes. Pure science is a higher aspiration, perhaps the highest. Although I have nothing against national glory and trade routes, their motivations are pretty conventional compared to pure science.
Spending on pure science in general is therefore the measure of a society, not spending in one particular area like space exploration. Space exploration has to compete with other forms of pure science for funds. The question can legitimately be asked whether the discoveries in extraterrestrial geography are as important as, say, other forms of astronomy.
There is a case to be made that space exploration can wait until it is cheaper and safer. The money now invested in the space station should lead to cheaper space travel eventually. I think we can hold off on a trip to Mars until then without talking about degeneration and collapse.
to quote:
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
Ahh, but we're talking about an interplanetary war, not a barroom brawl. History has shown that although southern good ol' boys may be better in a fight, northerners are better in a war. This may be related to the reason people prefer southern hospitality. In any case, I'd put my money on New York (or Boston, or Chicago, or ...) street thugs over southern good ol' boys any day -- southerners are too nice, northerners will cut out your liver and feed it to the dog... :)
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
This has been seen on Earth and since Mars has an extremely thin/non existant atmosphere, object causing impact would not be vapourised upon entering the atmosphere, which happens on Earth. This would result in many more impacts, especially small yet high-speed impacts, the kind it is next to impossible to have on earth because small fast objects would burn up in Earth's atmosphere. This phenomena would be virtually impossible to find on earth so this may be the first instance of finding it, therefore, we have no basis for comparison.
What if these springs are simply small impact craters, and the dark spots, beads of dark glass left over from impacts?
Haven't you watched MTV lately?
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I had always been under the impression that those dark patches were dust storms. As a matter of fact, I was just watching something to that effect on Discovery Channel last night.
The Digital Sorceress
Not to difficult to believe that all the still-unoxidized iron on the planet serves as the sink for the oxygen these critters produce -- assuming they produce oxygen at all.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
You seem to be using the Russian spelling, "Antarctida."
Keep in mind that if you want English-speaking persons to understand what the heck you are talking about, you should use "Antarctica."
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
He nicknamed the organism the "Zolax." (Scroll two-thirds of the way down the page to see it.) If it resembles any earth organism, I would say the tarantula -- although it seems to have a half-dozen or so "tentacles," rather than articulated legs. If you look closely at the lower-left corner of the image, you'll even see one of the tentacles in contact with the ground. The point where it's attached to the body is hidden behind the rock, and it's casting a shadow! If this is a hoax, the hoaxer showed admirable attention to detail.
Disclaimer: the other purported anomalies on this web page are pretty dubious. (Don't you hate when some wacko points to a JPEG artifact and says "look, an artificial structure!" or "look, an organism!") I wish they weren't on the same page as the Zolax, because they hurt its credibility. Nevertheless, the Zolax looks like the real deal. It appears in both the left and right cameras simultaneously, so it can't be an image-processing artifact. It could be a hoax, but it would take a lot of effort to fake a stereo image like this.
It would be nice if we knew the time interval between the two frames -- then we'd have an idea of how fast this critter moves.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Note how there is a dendritic, tree-like structure radiating outward from a central "trunk." I know crystals can sometimes grow with a dendritic structure, but consider the scale of the image: about 5 meters per pixel. These are huge structures.
Also note that they appear to rise above the surface to a significant height. Sunlight is coming from the bottom of this image; the ground is bright on that side of the objects, and in shadow on the other side.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.