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Lunar Polar Ice Not Present
pclark999 writes "The New Scientist reports that radar probes of the lunar polar region has disproved earlier theories regarding large sheets of polar ice in craters permanently in the shade. "
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Can we put Vanilla Ice there?
Granted there is no water on the moon, we'll have to bring it there ourselves I guess, presumably we're either importing from Earth, or how about nudging a comet towards the moon once the technology is feasible? As long as your aim is good (for the love of god don't miss and hit Earth), we could have a large supply of water available for long term moon usage indefinitely (when we run out, just nudge another comet, but control the landing of the comet if there's already people there).
...in bed
That means no brewery on the moon. So much for my dreams of being a drunken astronaut.
Trolling is a art,
... so the vacation resort people can decide on their long term plans for ski resorts.
Right, no ice for beer on the moon, everyone off to mars...
and next they'll be telling us it's not made of cheese! Bunch of heretics!
I owned that ice! Who took it????
before long :-)
This means that my great grand childrens' lunar snow cones bought at LunarDisney(tm) will cost 10 times as much! We shouldn't stand for this highway robbery!
Team leader Bruce Campbell
Did he vanquish the Mooninites, too?
that?
I dissproved this theory a long time ago using duck tape, a pair of binoculars, and a laser pointer.
I have proof too.
Blogzine
clifgriffin > blog
Now I'll never be able to unload www.luxury-moon-ice-cubes.com.
Carousel is a lie!
I was just surfing the web and came across this Nova article about one of the possible theories over the creation of the moon. Its says that the moon is a result of a asteroid crashing into the earth and was formed by the pieces that were blasted off the earth. Here is a video animation they have on it.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
> They've never let scientific facts affect their views anyways...
Riiiiight. Because we all know that burning fossil fuels here on Earth has *no negative effects* on the environment whatsoever. Idiot.
(a) similar studies done from *lunar orbit* favor the existence of ice. why is an earth-based study more accurate?
(b) the article states that only 20% of the permanently-shadowed surface was tested from arecibo. so why the unilateral conclusion?
are the winner out of all the lunar-ice jokes. If I had mod points, I'd hit you up.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
it said there was no sheets of ice at the poles. There could still be grains. The previous survey showed a lot of hydrogen up there, and the best guess for how you get lots of hydrogen to stick around is as ice.
Not sure why you couldn't have methane mind...
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
How will our Gates, Allens, and Ellisons of the world cool their water and various other beverages now?
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
Holy crap! No ice?! What's going to prevent the cheese moon from going bad?! Quick! Someone! Find the expiry date on that thing!
Team leader Bruce Campbell, at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, told New Scientist: "There are no thick ice deposits in the areas we observed." The researchers surveyed 20 per cent of the Moon's shadowed regions
Not sure what he just said, but I think that means there is going to be an Evil Dead part 4
This is a common misunderstanding of the moon. No place on the moon is ever permanently in the shade (excepting something like a cave of course). This comes from the mishandled use of the phrase "dark side of the moon". The moon i tidally locked with earth, meaning that its rotation is such that as it revolves around earth, we always see the same face of the moon. The far face that we do not see is termed "the dark side of the moon". This dark side is actually not always dark. At times when the moon moves between the earth and the sun (the new moon phase) this far side is brightly lit by the sun's light.
Slackware, what else when it must be secure, stable, and easy?
As the chinese would be the next to put a foot on our satellite, a red moon is off then...
I agree.
clifgriffin > blog
Roll on the ESA's Smart 1 probe next year which will hopefully resolve the issue.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
The "Moon": A Ridiculous Liberal Myth
.. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.
It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors
Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!
Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
I guess I won't be able to open up my Lunar Sno-Cone shop. Can I sue the owner of the Moon for lack of facilities? Or do I sue the owner of the Sun for driving off all the ice?
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Global warming cultists would like you to ignore this news.m
l wa rmingseries01.shtml
/. individual come up with a reasonable defense against the UHIE argument. Until you do, you're just a bunch of uninformed spew-the-latest-FUD global warming activists.
http://www.parthe.net/_cwg0803/00000018.ht
http://www.opinionet.com/staff/bobwebster/globa
I'm *STILL* waiting to hear a single K5 or
Note: UHIE stands for Urban Heat Island Effect. I'm not going to bother explaining, cause if you don't know, you're exactly the kind of person that propogates FUD while having no clue what you're talking about.
Where's my ice?
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
That is the whole point/meaning of science - the acceptance of fallibility, and the the willingness to drop old theories in the light of new evidence.
It doesn't rely on proof through intimidation.
.. but yes, I did. :-)
There are areas in the polar region where the bottoms of craters are in eternal shade, and that is precisely what these studies are talking about.
And when we say "The dark side of the moon".. we are referring to either a Pink Floyd album, or the side of the moon that is currently in darkness.. so the dark side of the moon is indeed always dark.. just like the dark side of the earth.
Beyond that, Campbell believes that the only way to settle the debate is to land a spacecraft. He is part of a team designing such a mission, called Polar Night.
I think this is called a conflict of interest mister. This study just lost a lot of credibility.
how did all the whalers on the moon get around?
At least they can still sing the whaling song.
Too bad Herge is dead, because he would prefer to redrawn "tintin on the moon"...
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Its because the aliens have removed it, probably used it all build os support their secret base on the backside of the moon where they leech on all our Cable TV.
Let's get this clear: they used a really really really really powerful radar, and then found that the ice "wasn't there". Uh huh. But now the moon does have strange clouds of water vapour... Whoops.
if some one can sell a domain named 'goat sex', I'm sure there's a buyer for yours too. :)
cult: a small, unpopular religion.
religion:a group of fanatics so devoted to their cause they abandon all science, reason, and logic. See also: Global Warming.
It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)
.. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors
Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!
Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Ice will go directly to a gaseous state. The moon has no atmosphere, btw.
Meaning if it were there it would have evaporated long ago.
am happy that the Chinese will now not be able to procede with their plans to build a self-sustaining lunar base from which they planned to dominate the earth.
Ignoring the fact the above post is clearly flamebait...
The two theories you mentioned - Evolution and the Big Bang, are both just that - scientific theories. Based on observations, scientists have been able to come up with a 'best-fit' theory, which makes sense, and helps explain and model the world we see around us.
So far all evidence (background microwave radiation, expanding universe, etc) seems to confirm the theory of the big bang. Of course there are still some occurances which we do not understand, but unless you have a better theory to offer, try and understand why centuries of research by our best scientists has yielded the conclusions it has.
Evolution is practically common sense. We UNDERSTAND genetics. We know that physical characteristics are INHERITED. We know that creatures not adapted to their surrounding will simply die. Anyone capable of logical thinking can conclude that over generations, species will adapt to cope with their surroundings. It's not so much of a theory than it is fact which can be proven by anything from mathematical models, to observing real life phenomenon.
"The only thing that has stayed constant for all time is the Word of God."
Right, umm, yes. Of course we haven't found major indiscrepencies between the bible and reality, once we gained the technology to observe it. We still know that heaven happens to be just above the clouds, ligtning is a result of God's angwer rather than electrostatic potential buildup, and that noah saved life on planet earth by transporting every species on a giant ship. Oh, wait. What we now know to be bullshit is claimed to be "symbolic" of the deeper meaning in the bible.
You say "everything we get wrong or can't explain is the work of someone superior", and claim you can't be disproved. Scientists do their best to actually EXPLAIN the world in which we live in rather than saying "I dont know a thing, so the explanation is god". And I don't know how the moon-ice theory relates to evolution and secular cosmology. I assume that you don't either.
Dude, that is why they are called theories, not laws. They only think that is what is happening or what has occured based on the best evidence. Science is full of theories that have been discounted. That is in fact one of the main goals of science. You come up with a hypothesis based on your theory, and see if the evidence supprts it. If it does, you have more evidence to support your theory. If it doesn't, then you hav more evidence which you can use to make a better theory. The big bang theory is a theory which not only was supported by the evidence at teh time of its inception but has since been corraborated by dozens and dozens of more evidence that it occured. Evolution has so much evidence going for it that most don't even consider it a theory. There are massive amounts of observations where evolution is the only explanation that makes any real sense. Take a class in psychology on Sensation and Perception if you don't believe me.
As to Lunar ice, science does not rely on single observations alone but must have duplicatable results. In other words, just becuase one person notices ice on the moon and forms a theory that it exists at the bottom of these craters does not mean that that is the case. Those observations have to be supported by doing multiple observations. In this case, those multiple observations shwed that lunar ice did not exist and that the theory for it was incorrect. We have now have even more evidence from which we can form an even better understanding of the moon. This is the way science works. If no theory ever got discounted, we would never get anywhere.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Calling currently-held religious beliefs "myths" is rather more polite than the general attitude of religious people essentially proclaim such nonsensical fiction as pure unadulterable fact.
Perhaps we should throw politeness out of the window and call these "myths" what they are, bare-faced lies to manipulate and control the populace.
By the way, I like jumbo shrimps.
Although finding water would be nice, the real issue is finding a long-term source of hydrogen on the moon. The moon offers plenty of long-term sources of oxygen as a byproduct of processing moon rocks. But hydrogen may be scarer, unless there really is a concentration of either water or hydrated rock at the poles. Without hydrogen, life gets much harder. Perhaps the moon really is a harsh mistress.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
What are you doing here on slashdot? Better get yourself down there and edumicate some so-called scientists. Shit, if they were so daft to overlook this simple "fact", they don't deserve to call themselves scientists.
It's a space station!
It's still made of green cheese, right?
As detailed in this article Lasting Measures Of Budget Reduction, it is possible to bring otherwise stratospheric costs *ahem* "down to earth" (forgive the pun.;))
This is a clear case of Humans polluting the lunar landscape by driving those Lunar rovers all over the place. Now the Lunar ice caps have melted and the rest of the Lunar ecosystem is in jeopardy.
Stop Lunar Warming now!! Save The Moon!!
This global warming thing is really getting out of hand!
Some would say the earth is our moon [We're the moon], but that would belittle the name of our moon, which is The Moon.
GET YOUR WEAPONS READY! --DR.LIGHT
it's too hot for normal ice on the sun... i bet what they saw was dry ice.
42 + 1 = 42
please note that there is no mention of truth or falsity in Merriam-Webster's entry for "myth", except in a secondary denotation.
entries 2b and 3 would seem to be the only ones that should be cause for offense. however entry 1a works just fine in the curent context, unless you want to object to "ostensibly".
They disproved that large sheets of ice exist right below the surface, they didn't disprove that any ice exists.
Somebody please mod this idiot down! No mention of the moon prior to 1950? What the hell is wrong with you? I suppose that Galileo and Tycho Brahe were looking up their own asses with their telescopes then? Or was that the satelite sent it to orbit by the Illuminati or the Catholic Church? Get your head out of your ass, dipshit.
Bummer, I guess I'll have to leave the ice skates at home.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
to tolerate capitalism.
Individuality is far, far too important to be lost working to death in someone else's sugar mines.
"But don't forget that most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor." -John Dickinson
How does this affect the theories about the moon being formed after Earth collided with some ancient planetoid? Or am I way behind on the current theories about the moon?
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
However, they did find mutant Lunar Polar Bears who wore caps. Researchers are quoted as saying, "We knew it was something like that..."
The main constituent of Moon rocks are basalts, which are generally made up (to simplify) of Silicon, Aluminium, Magnesium and Iron OXIDES. Oxygen is very abundant on the moon, given enough energy.
Hydrogen, on the other hand, is almost only ever found as water on this planet; this is the big problem.
The radar astronomers admit that they were not able to probe Shackleton crater where Clementine got it positive reading. In any event, I doubt we are talking about much more than frost in the regolith. This is bad news for those who prattle on about stipmining the lunar south pole in order to manufacture rocket fuel.
an ill wind that blows no good
...but not as much as cheese!
- passion
So, someone stole the lunar polar ice cap? Maybe the FBI is on it. Maybe that's why they don't have time to look into a paltry $15,000 worth of fraud for us...
When I first wrote the "Moon a Ridiculous Liberal Myth" piece, I never once thought that anybody would take it seriously. It never ceases to amaze me that I'm still being proved wrong four years later.
--70%
"indiscrepencies"? :^p
-------- In Soviet Russia, "Soviet Russia" sigs hate Slashdot.
because (1) it has a much lower freezing point and (2) it has a characteristic albedo and hue.
no please mod parent up. besides manipulating and controlling the populace, these myths also serve to give weak-minded people a false sense of security and purpose in life. understandable, but still pathetic.
i second that.
In Soviet Russia we make ourselves space sick.
The Russian space programme is a very professional organisation, and I know for a FACT that there absolutely no drunken astronauts there. For shame! They are drunken cosmonauts, not astronauts.
We are told there is water [ice] on the moon, then there is not water on the moon.
They talk about sheets of ice subsurface being present in the article, or now maybe it is just crystals. What scientific reason would ice remain on the moon? They do not say. Still I am not surprised they cannot find clear evidence of water on the moon.
They can look and look for whatever they want to find. Point is if water is there, then water isn't there, then nothing is being said. They just as well say, "We are confused."
We were going so well, balls to the wall, in the 60's and early 70's then.....stopped. There are all kinds of reasons to continue our extra-terrestrial presence, not the least of which is ensuring the survival of our species when the next big rock comes. Hopefully, the Chinese efforts of late will spur our return.
As opposed to Star Trek, the opiate of the geek masses?
perhaps we will find it again. Looking for a possible rich water bound sight and then landing there for samples seems lide the best way to know for sure. Going from a solid to a vapor then into space would be a good reason to not find water on the surface of the moon, if water was/is very deep undermoon ground, beyond our abitilty to find from earth or orbiting observation it can still be there and as far as drilling deep for water I do not think that would pose a very big problem. We have to go there to know for sure.
I eat my grapes at room temperature, cuz the cold ones hurt my teeth
This is obivously a troll, but I'll answer anyway. However, tell me one thing, if the scientific community thought there might be ice on the moon, and if they by further investigations found out it is not, does that mean science is still wrong? No, it means science is doing its job as long as we let them do it. It shows us a good example of the self correcting mechanism. Science is the best way we have to investigate nature.
remember ? there is a nice explanation here, don't know if it's really valid or not, but still, very interesting
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
Then how I'm supposed to take my whisky up there?
:D
On the "rocks"??
No way!
PS: Heading for Europa (a Jupiter moon)... at least there's ice there.
remember this story? there is a nice explanation here, don't know if it's really valid or not, but still, very interesting. :-/
PS: sorry for the previous post, I clicked submit instead of preview
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
Also, so what if it takes a lot of processing to get the water out of the soil. It's not like you don't have a great source of energy just over the crater wall.
There is still a lot of stuff on the moon that could make the place a dang useful place for mining. Hydrogen isn't strictly necessary to make lots of useful artifacts.
We are in a very early stage of the development of space-and the real agenda now is figuring out just what is out there and how to use it. I suspect that someone will figure out some uses for the Moon even before that inventory is complete.
From what I read, it is 3 things:
1) A survey
2) An analysis of the results
3) A conclusion based on the analysis.
I don't think that this constitutes proof at all. Maybe the author needs to take a Logic course.
The dictionary definition of "myth" is "a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon." As a Christian, I feel that this definition describes the Flood story very aptly. Stop making the vast majority of us mainstream Christians look like blubbering idiots by crying persecution at the slightest provocation.
This is probably a troll, but the parent got modded up, so I hope this could be considered part of the discussion here. I've tried to discuss this WITHOUT any hint of personal belief, so it can be absorbed by both sides of this issue.
Please note that science frequently requires as much faith as religion does.
You make a large number of statements that you posit as "fact" without any backing behind them. For example, evolution is NOT practically common sense. Quite the contrary, there are many SCIENTISTS (not religious nuts) who have serious problems with fitting Darwin's theories with observed facts. For example, the idea that DNA could self-organize from bare chemicals is difficult to support, when there are ZERO examples of lower-level compounds that appear to be precursors of DNA; this casts a certain pall on the entire concept of life-as-we-know-it-evolving-from-primoridal-goop. Many people I know actually believe in some middle-ground - like God-directed evolution, where God somehow sparked things off and put certain structures in place.
One problem many scientists willingly admit is that there are few rigorous examples of "macro-evolution" - huge-scale evolution between species. There are numerous examples of microevolution such as moths changing color in sooty areas of England, etc. But the fossil record, often used to "prove" evolution, contains HUGE gaps that cannot be explained (at this point). If you look at a realistic evolutionary species tree, you'll see lots of question marks and dashed or dotted lines. Granted, these may be simply a lack of having found the right fossil yet - but then again, whichever way you see THAT is a matter of faith, isn't it?
Much of the things you propose are myth or symbolic imply a disbelief in any deity. Be honest - that sort of invalidates you as capable of accurately evaluating a theological work from a theological perspective. To narrow that statement down, if you DO believe in God, it's not a far stretch to believe that God (by definition all-powerful) is easily capable of using natural phenomenon such as lightning or flood or earthquake or supernova to do his work. If he exists, and is all-powerful, and decided to create enough water to cover the earth, why not? The only reason it seems impossible to you is because you START from the viewpoint that there is no deity. That's a logical fallacy.
One interesting quandry for a scientific-thinking believer in God is "what did God choose to create?" Many creationists belive God created the fossil record, intact. Some believe that the record was created during Noah's flood. But you can also find people, quite intelligent people, who think that God chooses to use geology, cosmology, evolution etc. as tools to shape the world as we know it. Why not, after all? Why should any rational person try to limit a deity to a particular method of creation (such as the "ex nihilo", or instantaneous out-of-nothing creation)? (BTW, many Christian fundamentalists believe that if you don't believe in a literal King-James-Version interpretation of the Bible's story of a six-day creation, you throw away Truth as a concept. But others see more wiggle-room in the Genesis account - arguing that the original-language word for "day" actually is better translated "time", implying an epoch instead.)
As to the Big Bang, again, we have no comprehension whatsoever (scientifically) about why such an event would ever happen. Can you PROVE that such an event wasn't sparked by a deity? I don't believe so, any more than a deist could PROVE it was. So you operate on a certain level of faith, while the deist operates on a similar level - just in a different deity.
For these, and many more reasons, I find it foolish to make absolute statements about cause-and-effect of the universe in a public forum. We simply don't know enough, either way.
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
the fact that different countries are going for the moon, tempers will flare and before you know it, we'll have wars over who gets rights over the moon or sections of the moon, just as if we wanted sections of the earth... politics will always rear their ugly heads.. I think we should sign a treaty before we go any further to make the earth and mars free territory for scientific research, and independent studies, but not for anyone to truly own or try to take over or control since they would be stupid and the land has gone billions of years without us needing to control it.
Global warming. That's the reason. Hey, we've got to get rid of the greenhouse gases on the moon. No SUV's. SUV's generate all greenhouse gases.
-- No sig for you!
Which is why the post read sealed as in closed, and not isolated.
Besides, how does the sunlight replace water?
What we should do is power the ships by oxidizing hydrogen. When they reach the moon, they can drink the waste.
I, by no means, consider myself "weak-minded". As for "a false sense of security and purpose", if you think showing compassion and kindness to your fellow human being displays a false sense of purpose; what would be a true sense of purpose?
Even if my belief is God is wrong, I still will have had a positive impact on this world. If THAT is a false sense of purpose, I wish more people would have it.
Just my humble opinion,
SirLantos
The flying hamster of DOOM rains coconuts on your pitiful city.
Question for someone who might know: How was the ice supposed to survive for billions (or for that matter, even thousands) of years? Ice sublimates. (You can see it directly that you don't even necessarily need low pressure environments; make ice cubes in your freezer and leave them for a few weeks. The ice cubes slowly but surely shrink.)
Once the ice/water vapor gets into the sun, it'll leave the lunar surface, since simple observation shows the Moon isn't capable of holding water vapor (or it would).
So how, theoretically, is the ice supposed to survive, even at the poles? Drop a few million tons of ice onto the Moon, even in a crater, and it'll disappear in a geologic blink of an eye. Maybe I'm missing something but I never expected to find ice on the moon because of this effect.
...because Mars Needs Women!
We geeks can't afford sharing the ones we have already what with all the big tentacles, musculature and attractive extra eyeballs. Mhey.
I knew Hartford lost their franchise, but in terms of expanding the NHL this is going just a little too far. No wonder nobody plays them anymore. I wonder if they use roller blades instead of hockey skates in their intra-team scrimages? Hmm....
Whenever the moon was created it had to have been very hot, and so water would have existed as vapor if it existed at all. Since the moon doesn't have enough gravity to hold down an atmosphere, all it's gases, including the water vapor, would have boiled off into space. Why would scientists be hoping for water? It seems to me the only materials that should remain on the moon are those that remain solid/liquid at high temperatures. Am I wrong on this? I would think that the atomosphere would have left pretty quickly, and that there wouldn't have been much time for much of anything to percipatate out of it. Is there any ice of any kind of the moon that we know is there for sure?
> Point is if water is there, then water isn't there, then nothing is being said.
> They just as well say, "We are confused."
No - at that point they say "evidence suggests that..." and give the currently best theory.
That's how science WORKS - you take difficult, confusing evidence, build a theory WHICH MIGHT BE WRONG, and then go out to test the theory to see if it's right.
Sometimes people come up with a theory based on evidence, and later evidence proves the theory wrong. It happens. That's not failure - that's the fundamental nature of science - learning the truth includes learning which things are false, as well as which things are true, and sometimes there's no way to get to the truth other than by informed trial and error.
If you don't get it, it's good you're not a scientist. And it's good some of us do.
Man, I know both of those. How old and sad am I? :-(
--- Ban humanity.
Also, they *didn't* find that there's no ice! They found evidence against particular arrangements (thick layers) of ice.
Anybody else find it interesting that the person drumming up the controversy regarding the presence of ice is planning on proposing a mission to go there? I wonder if the review committee will consider that.
So far the radar only look at the visible side of the moon. How about the dark side of the moon? is there any water there? I would think there are more chance as more ice could freeze there than the visible side.
I'm surprise that we dont have robots roaming the moon for searching and mapping the moon for mineral.
Ah, a classic, textbook case of a "poisoning the well," fallacy.
Too bad people like Mendel, Newton, da Vinci, Pascal, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Bach, Handel, Michelangelo, Lincoln, Livingstone, etc. so inconveniently fail to adhere to your conclusions.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
...is that neither Polyploid Pimp ("I'm a scientist!") nor Bendebecker can correctly spell either "phenomenon" or "phenomena".
Disprove that!
I'm an evolutionist. I'm also a theist. Carl Sagan was an atheist, and put it best:
Most creationists believe in a piddly little micromanager of a God who slacked off for six days and pulled an all-nighter 6000 years ago. I'm not even sure I'd want to have a beer with that God, let alone worship it.
But a hypothetical being capable of fiddling with M-branes and bouncing them off each other to see what sorts of universes pop out - is not only consistent with a cursory reading of Genesis (hey, sheep farmers 6000 years ago had enough trouble coming up with words to describe the Big Bang, the freezing-out of electromagnetism from the strong and the weak forces, the formation of the Earth, the condensing-out of water vapor, and the evolution of life from plant to animal to primate)... That's the kind of God who sounds like something worth worshipping. Mad props to you, sir.
(And when we fully understand string theory, or find another way to reconcile GR with QCD, maybe I'll have to upwardly revise my estimation of this "God" dude again :)
Another mindfsck - Genesis only purports to describe the creation of our universe. If God exists, He's probably chuckling to himself over that. "Hey, the shepherd didn't ask if there were other universes, so why tell him? The humans wanna learn about the rest of My creation, they can bloody well go learn themselves some high-energy particle physics! I gave 'em a hint when I said the heavens displayed My glory, but I ain't gonna do all the work for 'em! Why the hell do they think I ignored their planet for the 13 billion years it took for them to evolve big brains? What do they think their brains are for, anyways?" :)
no biggie, cheese is better at room temp. anyway.
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
"Calling currently-held religious beliefs "myths" is rather more polite than the general attitude of religious people essentially proclaim such nonsensical fiction as pure unadulterable fact.
Perhaps we should throw politeness out of the window and call these "myths" what they are, bare-faced lies to manipulate and control the populace."
You focus on the worst stereotypes (which are actually opposed to the essential words of Christ) and hold them up as a counterpoint to your "enlightened" viewpoint.
In fact you cite the contempt of some Christians as a cause to be anti-Christian (or as a model of Christian teachings). You should review the truth in fact and examine it closely in your heart, and read the word of God as told by Jesus Christ, and not as told by misguided Christians, and realize the contradictory position you have put yourself in: citing false shadows of Christianity as your core reason to oppose Christianity.
And perhaps then, my friend, you will realize the full depth of the myth you've constructed for your own comfort in a world where it's uncomfortable to contradict your peers and follow the truth and the light. Only then will you understand the sacrifices made and what it means to die on a cross.
What do I know? Not much. I am just a student in this life, like you. But I am not fooled by a black and white view of the world that relies on contempt to survive.
And in my humble opinion, your belief [in God] isn't wrong. :)
Sad it is when people think that they can measure the true value of a mind by being "weak" or "strong." The same such people who speak with contempt and venom toward those who seek to live a righteous life in God's love, the same attackers ask for compassion for their own conscious and intentional misdeeds, and seek to be praised for their own contempt.
It is a poor mind that cannot discuss fundamental and reasonable differences of faith and opinion, without calling others "weak-minded." Instead of understanding the nature of faith, love, truth, righteousness, and its transforming effects on a life, they seek to belittle it and proclaim that essential randomness and amorality is superior (at least until they want to assemble a morality in defense of their own misdeeds).
Ah, but I've only seen his kind so many times before, and he probable swallows and revels in a regular diet of every negative stereotype that is shared among every other stereotype sharer. I must obviously be weak-minded. What do I know?
The best way to resolve this potential water shortage would be to have a highly efficient water recycling program so that the little water present could be used effectively.
For starters, a bodily fluid filter not unlike what they had in "Waterworld" would have to be used. I'm sorry I had to bring that movie up, but I am trying to make a point.
That alone won't be enough, though, so another procedure will need to be put into place.
Imagine a lunar colony. Whenever any of the moon citizens die or become sick, old, or disabled (no offense to any of the aforementioned groups), stick them in a giant centrifuge and produce a force of about, oh, 500 G's (whatever would be sufficient to liquify the contents), and strain the moisture out of the resulting goo. Voila! Soylent Aqua!
The only reason the "Word of God" has stayed constant is because it can not ever be proven to be either "correct" or "incorrect".
Science is able to admit that it is wrong, and refine itself in order to provide a greater truth.
The "Word of God" is static, refusing to even acknowledge that is may be in any way incorrect...
I browse at +5 Flamebait- moderation for all or moderation for none.
"The New Scientist reports that radar probes of the lunar polar region has disproved earlier theories regarding large sheets of polar ice in craters permanently in the shade. "
yes, while this is bad for colonies on the moon that need water, could they just not process the abundant cheeze deposites and trade it with the darkside aliens for water? I mean DR evil had a moon base, he had to have got water from somewhere!
Too bad space is a so inhospitable environment. I had high hopes for seeing the space age during my lifetime. Now, all I can hope to see is WWIII (thanks to politicians spending millions of dollars for guns instead of feeding the poor of this planet).
When I watched Star Trek I used to dream about giving commands to "raise the shields", "fire photon torpedos" or to hear lines like "Romulan Warbirds decloaked at 3 o'clock" etc...Now I can do in Bridge Commander, but the dream of travelling to and knowing the stars slips further away each day that passes, with each announcement that new obstacles to space exploration have been discovered...
I hate how Marriam Webster has become the ultimate authority on everything. Noah Webster was a god damned whacko.
coughminusoneofftopiccough
But when they say that, they visualize the moon.. a full moon. And in that case, they are correct.
IF we see no moon (because it's dark) there isn't really anything to refer to a dark side of, right? RIGHT?
The actual citation is "Nature" 426, 137 - 138 (13 November 2003); doi:10.1038/426137a. I learned to read the "New Scientist" as the Fleet Street News of Science: deliberately sensational, and necessarily incorrect to maintain readership. New Scientist is another example of Rupert Murdoch's and William Randall Hearst's paradigm for making profits with otherwise boring News.
It is a report about Arecibo's radar measurements of the Lunar South Polar region. With a best resolution of 300 meters across, the Arecibo team reports that the dish did not detect large earthlike formations of ice, BUT the report does not dispute the earlier gamma-ray scattering measurements used to infer the presence of water in the Lunar South Polar Region. Rather it states, that the water is not likely to be in masses of ice - or caverns of ice - that are greater than 300 meters across, and is likely to be mixed into the fine lunar dust as ice granules in a loose permafrost, or extremely thin sheets, or other non-radar reflecting condensate.
As such, the report doesn't even rule out flocks of lunar penguins as the source of the lunar water signature.
Given the naturally anhydrous nature of lunar dust - it is also possible that the water is locked into micro aggregations of lunar "concrete," since the sticky lunar dust would ionically bond to any ionized water depositing on the surface of the moon. This form of water would require more energy to release from the lunar soil than simply strip-mining chunks of ice sheets, but a dynamic electro-magnetic lense, perhaps constructed from interfering microwaves, should be able to concentrate solar wind plasma to a high enough energy density to split the water from the soil.
Dream on gentle readers: The water is there, just not in the form expected for when "The Iceman Cometh." Note: Gentle readers should check out Eugene O'Neill's play of the same name, where delusion provides the only escape from disappointment.
DarkStarZumaBeachSurfinApocalypseWow
Oh I'm sorry, did I mention Christianity or Jesus? I don't think so. I wouldn't single out one faith, they're all as bad as each other. I assume you are a christian, and I think it's rather arrogant for you to assume I am talking about your religion alone.
What strikes me as funny is that many religions have different beliefs about certain absolutes. Now they can not all be right. So it's fairly implicit that each religion is essentially claiming that other contrary religions are wrong.
So none of us have the higher moral ground on this argument. We all have our beliefs, and we all usually laugh at those of others. The only people I truly respect are those that believe nothing, and will accept anything. It's unfortunate that I spend most of my time laughing at them too, they're just so gullible.
I must really be pissing a few people off. The moderation system is getting abused left and right to mod down these posts. The big question is, is it evolutionists who don't want to learn to get along with creationists, or is it creationists who don't want strong scientific debate?
I can't do anything about the former, but if it's the later, hear this mods: "For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." -Galatians 5:14
Other men may choose to make me an enemy. But I choose to turn the other cheek and offer a hand in friendship.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
> How many times over the history of science have scientists had to backpeddle and admit that their theories are wrong?
Every time the evidence demands it.
> The only thing that has stayed constant for all time is the Word of God.
No, the Word of God mutates every time a new denomination cleaves off. And with an estimated 3000 protestant denominations in the USA alone, that should give you some idea of how "constant" the WoG is.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> Seriously, calling currently-held religous beliefs "myths" is incredibly rude and disrespectful to slashdot christians.
Given that we've known for 200 years that the global flood didn't happen, and given that people still believe it, what do you expect us to call it?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
um...'fable'...'parable'...'metaphor'...?
;-)
Just a few suggestions off the top of my more-civilised-than-thou head.