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NASA Mars Press Briefing & "Significant Findings"
An anonymous reader writes "NASA will have a press briefing today at 2 p.m. EST to announce "significant findings". Salty liquid water maybe? Bacteria? This meeting will also be broadcast on NASA TV."
But I, for one, don't find that particularly significant.
Bow down before your Martian overlords!
Salty liquid water... bacteria... they didn't need to go to Mars for that, I have it right under each arm.
to carry NASA TV. I swear, the closer you get to Kennedy Space Center, the less chance they will offer it.
For Immediate Release: NASA in conjunction has forged a treaty with the Martian people, part of this agreement stipulates that they will no longer steal our probes for fun, in exchange, the USA has agreed to prevent the Brits from sending any more beagles.
Just because you disagree doesn't make it offtopic or flamebait.
Help, we run out of money !
They found Waldo? Or did they find Carmen Sandiego?
Darn. If it's broadcast on NASA TV, then there's no way on Earth (or Mars, for that matter) that it could possibly be anything of interest.... Forget C-Span, if you want boring TV just be sure to tune in to this.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
They've photographed the Martian who destroyed Beagle II, and other prior landers.
Campaign finance reform is national security.
uh, thank you for coming, folks. we have, ahhh, found a place to send things today.....
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
How on Earth--er, Mars--is this offtopic? Steve Squyres is part of the panel giving the presentation! A significant presentation no less, one that is about Mars!
Stupid moderators.
One of the chief scientists saved a bundle on his car insurance.
A lot of people are saying "salty water", but damn...microbes....it's just too much to hope for.
They've disovered that the red palnet isn't really red. We've just been looking at it with rose colored glasses.
"Don't forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he ever wanted".."He lived happily ever after"-Willy Wonka
Hey, don't blame me for the bad joke... what are you supposed to say regarding a news conference about an unknown topic?
deserve's got nothing to do with it...
They've found the Beagle :=)
I swear, the closer you get to Kennedy Space Center, the less chance they will offer it.
Of course. If Kennedy Space Center isn't sold out by the Thursday before the week, Nasa TV is blacked out for all the surrounding areas.
Go Support your local space exploration!
http://use.perl.org
The Bugblatter Beast of Traal destroyed both of our Mars Rovers because we did not equip them with towels to wrap around their video cameras.
Check out the best P2P sharing website: MEDIACHEST.COM
That's right. Because you know what will happen then don't you? The more aggressive environmentalists will say we can't send people there, and no way in hell can you colonize Mars, because we'll screw up the Martian bugs' habitat. And then even our robotic missions will have to go through some sort of expensive sterilization to make sure they don't squish anything. It would, in short, take all the fun out of the final frontier.
It should be illegal to say that freedom of speech should be limited.
Pressing news: later today, pressing news will be announced.
And maybe even the mysterious missing millions and millions of lines of sco code as well...
Yes, they found remnants of bacterial life and water but...
... not on Mars. The probes navigational systems malfunctioned and they spend the last few weeks driving around Nevada instead.
Hate me!
NASA TV
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't think either rover had any instruments designed for detecting any form of life. Unless it was significantly bigger than a microbe and could be seen with the relatively low-power microscope on the rover, I suppose.
German newsmag "Der Spiegel" has the story: They found a certain kind of iron sulfate compound, which forms only in bodys of standing water. Discoveries were made using the MIMOS-II Moessbauer spectrometer and the APXS x-ray spectrometer. Images are available in the article.
They found Dick Cheney's undisclosed location.
"Would you, could you, with a goat?" Dr Seuss
Hi. I'm Troy McClure. You might remember me from such Mars discovery videos as "So That is where My Car Keys Went" and "The Proper Classification of BEM Scat"
They found oil underneath the surface of Mars!! Haliburtan probe to be launched at 4pm Friday.
-- jimmycarter
Yep, here's the scoop. Illegal SCO code was found today, but it wasn't easy. They had to search Mars to find something.
No wait, that would be rather far fetched. I mean, it probably doesn't exist anyway. It's probably something mundane and obvious like water or proof of life.
DAMN. so close.
IP Therefore I am.
I hope this puts a curb on religios fanatics who believe God created the world in 7 days. What day did he create the living organisms on this planet, on that other planet? I know I'm way off topic here. But something like this could dramatically change the world. Proof that we are no longer alone.
We have a flu on Mars to chum up with.
*DrugCheese rants*
Just out of interest, does the media in the USA cover space news from other countries? For instance, was the launching of the European "Rosetta" probe today covered?
It is a fascinating project. Take a look at the "Animated guide to the Rosetta mission" about half way down the page on this BBC news item).
Finally some good news for Bush: NASA found WMDs on Mars.
there's no place like ~
They've either found water, found life, or Spirit is flipped on it's back like a turtle right now.
Is there still time to place my bet on this one? $50 on Spirit being in a ditch and NASA needing millions to send a second one with a large magnet to pull it back out.
I'm placing my bets on Val Kilmer's robot space-dog.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
To ruin US surprise, France has released image of the announcement:
http://www.humour.com/Image/AffichageImage.asp?VI
Probes already undergo severe sterilization procedures prior to launch. For the very simple reason that you don't want earth microbes in outer space places when you're looking for bugs there in the first place.
NASA Television can be found on the satellite AMC 9 Transponder 9C, 85 degrees west longitude, vertical polarization downlink frequency - 3880 MHz, Audio is at 6.8 MHz.
This is obviously the SCO model of PR - announce the announcement first. I'm just surprised there was no announcement that they were going to announce the announcement.
"Guys. Really. Mars is REALLY boring." Says Scientist studying Mars.
... more ...ROUND THINGS! I mean geesh - you want us to just sit here and guess and dream about them more? Ask me last week, and I would have been able to give you 5 theories, but... I just don't want to play the game anymore. They're round things... really boring... round things. Just because they're red and uniform doesn't make them magic people! Hey - maybe they're altoids, great! Let's dream about that for a while!"
"It's not funny anymore guys! I was into the whole robot thing for a while. That was cool. But it's been like, weeks now, and the that time delay thing is REALLY getting to me." Says Mark McGraffy, associate technician on the Spirit & Opportunity Mars data-gathering projects.
"Look... see! There it is
Mr. McGraff then ran off screaming. More news as it happens.
Ryan Fenton
You can view NASA TV online, as well, it seems... (The page also has satellite coordinates, and alternate sources for NASA TV)
What the heck has happened to the caliber of readers on /. if "A lot of people are saying "salty water", but damn...microbes....it's just too much to hope for." is considered Insightful?
:)
Its a reasonable comment to make, and I agree with it, but come ON. How is that insightful? That should imply it saying something interesting that perhaps the moderator didn't think of. Who here didn't think that same thing? Lets see a show of hands.
Pickles are green.
Now moderate me insightful.
Oh yeah, Martians are green too, so no moderating me off-topic.
They didn't find the martians, didn't find beagle 2...but rather, the martians have now destroyed spirit and opportunity
notice there hasn't been any picture updates since 2.27?
uh huh...me thinks that's it....the martians finally got 'em!
It would be regrettable if this annoucement only amounted to "We have evidence from the rock layers / erosion patterns / spherule concretions that water must have been involved in the creation of these features", as we already know that water can today exist in liquid form on 30% of the planet's surface, and that water has been active on the Martian surface in the recent geological past (source). But given NASA's reluctance regarding all things water-related, I wouldn't be surprised if that's what it's going to be.
The really interesting stuff is the things they have avoided talking about, like the "mud-like texture". But most interesting in terms of water evidence is the trench dug by Opportunity. If you look at the fairly solid wall of soil at the right you will see a slightly dark streak on it. That streak leads directly to a puddle on the floor. Given this visual evidence, and the structure of the soil, it is pretty obvious that this stuff is wet.
The simple reality is that Mars is a wet planet. The oceans didn't just vanish, they went underground into the porous subsurface world of Mars. That's where the real action is, not on the UV-sterilized surface. All we see of Mars' underground water world on the surface is the occasional puddle or pond, the black streaks and Malin's famous gullies. If you want to see Martian life, find wet underground regions with geothermal activity.
EST = GMT - 5 hours. (unless it's summertime then it's 4 hours)
so 2 p.m. EST should be 19.00h (GMT) in the UK and 20.00h in Amsterdam/Paris/Berlin (GMT+1).
Before we all get too excited, remember all the fuss in about 1996(?) when it was claimed that fossil bacteria traces had been found in a martian meteoite. And then turned out not to be true.
the Weapons of Mass Destruction
[obligatory Simpson's quote]
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
decided to buy a SCO license. Way to go SCO!
So exciting stuff, but probably not any microbes.
That's exactly what they have found... in order to prepare the public for the shock, they have leaked the cover.. see previous Slashdot item...
I think we should talk it up so much that whatever they announce it will be a big let-down.
isnt it obvious..
who do you think is the first linux user
SCO is suing..
You have 5 Moderator Points!
Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
This is what they found, yes?
A Big Black Monolith, 1x4x9.
Gator/Claria is Spyware.
... it's a monolith.
What we meant to say was that Nasa needs significant funding. Funding, not finding. Sorry for any confusion, but since you all are here we are going to pass around these offering plates and feel free to give what ever you can spare.
Who said science can't learn from religion?
500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
Get back under your bridge and stay there. :P
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
"in a small note it also saying something about preventing french to step foot on mars..."
Just tell the french that there is an opposing military presense on mars. You'll have an instant retreat to Venus.
It would be a groundbreaking one, I guess. Bacteria would be even better.
and a supoena under a rock!
>>NASA will have a press briefing today at 2 p.m. EST to announce "significant findings".
(from the press conference:)
"The bad news is, no, we haven't found water."
"But the good news is, we just saved up to 15% on our car insurance by switching to GEICO."
"Hey, come back..."
Hoagland knows: they're finally admitting to the moments of Mars.
Translation by the Fish
EST is always GMT - 5 hours. In the summer, when daylight savings time kicks in, its EDT. EDT is GMT - 4 hours.
Instead of putting in us the burden of disproving that we ignorant provincials, look at news.google. It's the top Sci/Tech story.
Every American space enthusiast I know is quite interested in Russian, ESA, Chinese, Indian, etc. space programs.
I will be staring at the SETI@Home graphs for the next few days waiting for our martian overlords to pop out of the screen. I will keep you posted :)
The rover stole the Illudium Q36 explosive space modulator!
Thank you for making me regret browsing at +1.
mplayer mms://wmbcast.nasa-global.speedera.net/\
wmbcast.nasa-global/wmbcast_nasa-global_jan\
212004_1021_53608
(Watch out for the \ that mark line continuations!)
Frame rate is low, but the audio's nicely in sync and is certainly decent enough for watching press releases.
Beware, though, that as I post, NASA TV is broadcasting some ghastly children's programme. You have been warned...
Could they have found a long lost SCO lawsuit?
Maybe even a lawsuit against NASA...they have deep pockets...who cares if they use vxworks?
As far as SCO is concerned, if it isn't Unixware, it isn't legal.
Or did they find darl's mind? he's obviously lost it...
How can you recite such tired cliches, you insensitive clod!
Life on Mars, or Linux on Mars?
that might be it, but it's not really new news. They've known about that for a few days now, and hadn't been keeping it under wraps.
I'm all for 'wait and see.'
"You worthless post!"
-Shakespeare, 2 Gentlemen of Verona, 1. 1. 147
I either have to install Real or update Mediaplayer on a PC to watch this? No thanks, I think I will just wait for the copy to be posted.
Stay tuned for new sig...
This week the martians are claiming that Bush armed the Phobosians who started a war
Here's an excerpt from Bush's expected press briefing tonight: "The Only Thing We Have to Fear... is Phobos Itself!"
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
The rovers found signs saying "go home yankee imperialists" and "free mars forever".
Amino acids. That's a good find, and implies enough to be "a big deal"
A problem cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created it.
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
ground control to Major Tom
MoFscker
Everybody is all excited about finding water on Mars because that increases the odds of finding life on Mars.
But the big excitement of finding water on Mars means that manned missions are possible. Not the one-way missions that were discussed previously here on slashdot, but the kind where we go in light and process our own fuel for the return trip.
Read any good sonnets lately?
"As of 2PM today a seven figure sum has been wired to SCO Corporation for IP Licensing compliance purposes on the Linux systems we run.
SCO has graciously extended the license to specifically cover NASA systems located outside the United States of America and even on other planets and satellites. As soon as we have legally valid documentation from SCO we will be able to switch on our Linux based probes and start collecting results from the surface of mars.
Press release ends."
If you have brine you also have many other minerals dissolved in water which is nutrients for bacterial life. Combine this with the knowledge that the Soviet landers were insufficiently sterilised and that bacteria are known for a fact to survive years in space then it is not unlikely that the life they might find is, well, Soviet bacteria.
BTW the Soviet probes used thermionic valves and cold therefore not be sterilised at high temperature so it is likely that some survived to join the probe on its journey to the red planet.
NASA is to annouce that, after a long search, the WMDs have finally been found.
MARS NEEDS WOMEN!!!
They finally found Osama bin Laden. He's been on Mars the whole time!
NASA does not put it on their page (I emailed them asking them to), but if you are on an Internet2 enabled + multicast enabled network (college/university) it is available via MPEG1 multicast feed.
You can view it with Quicktime, Real 9 (real 10 crashes with SDP), VideoLan and CISCO IP/TV.
To view it on Videolan start the player with
--extraint SAP
and look at the playlist....it can take up to 10 min before you'll see the NASA listing.
If anybody wants the sdp file I'll try and find a way of posting it. I tried to...but the slashdot forum filters killed my post!
...the parent is a reference to a (somewhat | very) humorous car insurance company advertisement campaign on tv here in the States.
If they have found evidence of microbial (or more advanced) present or past life on Mars give a thought to the chances that there is intelligent life outside of our planetary system. Two planets in the SAME PLANETARY SYSTEM. We have millions upon millions of stars in our galaxy alone. And there are over 100 billion galaxies known to exist out there. The odds just got alot better that we are not alone. Tho, at the same time, we also now run the risk of being non-unique and therefore life is just a standard thing that occurrs everywhere. Religions will go haywire, what will people believe in? People will have to change their ideas of 'my religion is better than your religion'. I can't wait.
"All it takes to fly is to hurl yourself at the ground... and miss." -D. Adams
Osama's beard is full of martian chiggers, and it itches like a sonofabitch.
Imagine for a second there is a world outside of the Internet, where strange people who spend less than half their lives sitting in front of the computer go freely around.
The question is, did those people hear about Rosetta at some point during the last few hours?
They found AOL CDs no doubt. God knows that Earth couldn't contain them all.
They found Open Source on Mars
Al-Quaida has attacked the mars rover.
I'm told you are what you eat, does that mean I can be you by tomorrow with some A1?
The iraqis put them were they never thought anyone would find them...
Yes, indeed, NASA has found bin Laden in a cave, meeting with Sr George Bush.
This is a significant event, becouse last time the bin Laden and Bush family had a meeting was in the early morning of 9/11.
There is a speculation, that the 2 oligarchies have teamed up with still un-announced alien forces, supposedly to plan and execute a spectacular event to help re-elect Jr. George Bush.
NASA goes public, because the Bushes have made it clear that no more space expeditions - after all, prominent, dominant families need privacy in order to plan earth-shaking events for the voters.
It's rather sad that NASA's discoveries and such rarely make even the back page of the newspapers. There was a big hype right after the two rovers successfully landed, but note how about two weeks afterwards, people forgot that they even landed. The American public grows bored with things very fast unless it is something that has to do with a sex scandle involving a politician or someone famous. When NASA announces something like "We found more of these smooth shiny spheres in the soil!" people often shrug and have no interest at all. All the people want are quick thrills and "big" discoveries. They overlook the fact that most science and groundbreaking discoveries only happen due to small realizations and lots of little facts pieced together slowly. I bet when the discovery of this mineral that only forms in water is announced at the press conference, most Americans won't even know that there was a press conference. The small discovery of this water-forming mineral will lead to more accurate theories that will lead to bigger discoveries. Such things shouldn't be downplayed, as this small discovery raises the chances of past/present life on Mars by an enormous amount!
THe Barsoomians are demanding we leave NOW! http://home.comcast.net/~cjh5801a/Carter.htm
This just in: "Today NASA discovered a new type of 'super-coder' on Mars. These hyper-intelligent beings exist in vast numbers and are willing to do contract development for 1/3 the price of today's Indian resource pool currently gutting the American I/T industry."
Tom Smykowski from Office Space: "I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?"
Might make for interesting synchronicity.
-Peter
It's also available via Internet2/Mutlticast advertised via SAP. If you have an I2+Multicast feed you can view it with the VideoLan client or Quicktime if you have the SDP information.
And he had Iraq's weapons of mass destruction with him.
They're not quite sure if it's genuine, but it looks like pretty strong evidence of an earlier civilisation
Further tests are under way to discover whether these artifacts are genuine, or whether they are merely crude attempts to revise history.
Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
You are forgetting that the surface temperature on Mars is extremely cold. That ain't no water puddle.
If you look at the fairly solid wall of soil at the right you will see a slightly dark streak on it. That streak leads directly to a puddle on the floor. Given this visual evidence, and the structure of the soil, it is pretty obvious that this stuff is wet.
This is like saying you will see (god damn it, you will see it, because I say it's there) the face of Elvis on the mound to the left. It's not even clear what you mean by, "wall of soil at the right."
If I'm even looking at the same spot on that photo as you (and given your vague comment, it's impossible to know that I am), it looks to me like the dark, finely powdered soil from the surface layer has poured down the side of the trench wall, leaving a faint stripe down the wall, and forming a small pile at the base of the trench. There's the explanation for your "puddle". No water needed here. Try going outside sometime and examining some finely powdered, totally dry clay or silt. Clearly you're going to be surprised at how fluidly it can behave.
Whoever designed level 61 in Frozen Bubble is a sadistic bastard.
there was a slashdot story about the songs played at the beginning of each martian day. Did they play "Life on Mars" today ? or just "Mossbauer spectroscopy rocks" (by some artist whose name I have forgotten )
Google passes Turing test : see my journal
they weren't in Iraq, but I'm glad the Weapons of Mass Destruction were finally located. Crafty of Saddam to put them on Mars... Hans Blix would have never guessed there.
Just raise the taxes on crack.
Most plans for manned mission to mars call for sending a nuclear powered fuel factory to transform indigenous martian resources into rocket fuel. Any people going to mars would probably be anxious that the robotic factory that was supposed to be manufacturing their air supply and fuel for the return trip had been working correctly for the past year it took them to reach marz. You could just as easily send the fuel factory, and unmanned probes that would refuel on marz as send manned vehicles that would refuel on mars. And if the factory wasn't working after all, then you could send another one and the probe could wait happily for it's arrival.
Eat at Joe's.
When will they break the government conspiracy and admit the truth?
John Carter and Dejah Thoris will be starring in a new reality show, "My Favorite Martian".
That insane scientist will be a pop-in for the laugh track.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
Perhaps you mean a (-1, Troll) .. by definition thought, the first post can't really be redundant, unless it's a restatement of the submission or something.
or maybe (-1, Offtopic)
Actually no. What they found was traces of SCO code on Martian soil. They are now wondering about the license fees.
Mars is really really red. That and after spending billions to send probes to Mars scientologiest have learned that they can basically say anything to the media cuz there is really no way for anyone else to refute it.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Because we would see evidence for it.
Instead, we see miles and miles of sediments stacked up on top of each other, many full of animal burrows, others requiring deposition in still water, others are deserts, others have dessication cracks.
There is a difference between what you say and the evidence. God sure did a good job of making the earth look old.
__________
[Big Brick Wall]
this is *absolutely true*.
Der Spiegel has already leaked the story.
In related news, Darl finally pulled off his human-like face mask to reveal his pasty green skin and large eyes.
They found Osama. He was hanging out with Bert, the muppet.
Must-not-watch TV!
Go bugger off and see "The Passion of The Crap" again... I LOVE reasonably religious folks, but American Fundamentalist Christians are worse than Islamic radicals, if for no other reason than they are INSIDE our country, taking advantage of our freedoms only to use them against ourselves by rolling back our fair and even-handed laws... in pursuit of their narrow-minded 'Moral-hypocrisy' agenda...
Newsflash for all Fundamentalist Right-Wingers..."America was founded by Deists not Christians... That christian Bible-crap all happened in the forties and fifties. I'm all for believing in god, but don't shake your poo-stick-religous-dogma at me..."
BIG SHOUT OUT TO ALL FREE THINKING RELIGIOUS BELIEVERS -- KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK -- HELP THE NEEDY -- STOP WORRYING ABOUT ABORTION, HOMOSEXUALS, DRUGS, VIDEOGAMES, ROCK AND ROLL, SEX AND AMERICA's 'FICTITIOUS MORAL-DECLINE'...
LONG LIVE SECULAR HUMANISM!!!
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
NASA are announcing their plans and timeline for the future:
Commitment to manned exploration of the solar system and beyond
Space shuttle back on line asap
ISS to be repurposed for manned exploration (Hmm, did they dicuss this with the other countries that built it?
New manned vehicle do be developed called CEV (anyone have more info on this? I tuned in just as this part ended)
Manned mission to the moon sometime between 2014 to 2020 (ie slower than the 'in this decade' with 1960s technology)
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
There are many ways the instruments on the rovers could be used to detect life, but mostly they are for finding geological evidence that the planet could have or could now support life.
One possibility not yet mentioned (and what to me would be the most exciting news) is if they peeled apart some of the sedimentary layers and found fossilized microbes or evidence of former sea life. That would blow me away.
Remember... ZG9uJ3QgZm9yZ2V0IHRvIGRyaW5rIHlvdXIgb3ZhbHRpbmU=
Looking at it closely, it does look like a puddle, with fine dirt floating on it; as would be expected for a concentrated brine. There appear to be faint reflections of the opposite trench wall on the surface of the puddle.
Well, reflections, or some less-than perfect application of the airbrush tool. I could lean pretty strongly towards the latter, in this case.
...
I know what they found.....Bushie's WMDs....
Something wonderful...
English is not my native language !
What they need to do is uncover some BEER and the place'll be half way decent! ;)
My web domain.
Well, the cable companies in Hustville, AL seem toa carry it and we're not that close the Kennedy Space Center. Although, the Marshall Space Center and the Space and Rocket Center might have something to to with that.
This mission is too important to allow you to jeapordize it.
Could the significant findings be weapons of mass destruction? You never know what those Martians have been planning.
This announcement will probably mention that evidence has been found that hematite deposits were created in a wet environment and that the Martian surface was once warmer and wetter than it is now. I doubt that any mention will be made of brine, although it's possible that a carefully phrased statement such as "the surface characteristics *suggest* the *potential* of brine" may be made. Why hedge? Simple. If definitive findings are announced solving various Martian mysteries there's little or no incentive to send the next rover... There will be NO mention of bacteria/fossils/our Martian Overlords. Look at the list of announcers, there's no biologist (and no real biology experiments on the rovers anyway).
http://www.the-planet-jupiter.com/Shoemaker-Levy-9 /g-impact-Shoemaker-Levy-9.jpg
www.c-span.org usually carries all of the NASA rover briefings live as well.
If the dollar is an "I owe you nothing", then the Euro is a "Who owes you nothing." - Doug Casey
Cheap shot, I know; but I had to take it! ;^)
They found proof of rivers.
From the article (quick translation): They did some chemical analyses and now the expectation of Mr. Squyres turned out to be true.
Even if you don't understand the article, the pictures are nice.
The site where: "I'm right, as long as you ignore the things that prove me wrong", became a valid method of debate.
Are you referring to this image ? That dark streak and "puddle" are a shadow from a contact prob on the arm.
Those who can do. Those who can't sue.
...you insensitive clod!
Mark my words. They found fish bones.
You should know that I of course believe that God created the world in 7 days. Why not? If there is an omnipotent God, why could he *not* do it in 7 days?
Because I believe that God's nature is to be rational, but that human nature is to be finite and to overlook things. And the fact is that the Bible was written by humans even if it was inspired by God, and humans with a very limited understanding of scientific method at that.
In addition, early Jewish culture relied heavially on numerology - for example "7" would often translate to "enough", "12" would often translate to complete, "40" would often translate to "a lot, or a long time". That fact is lost in modern day translations. So how do you know it isn't saying "God did more than enough when he made the universe".
Thank God someone didn't tell the story of goldylocks and the three bears in the Bible - or they might have actually thought bears talked back then too!
So if they can't detect microbes what are the chances that they might have stumbled across fossils in the rocks.
I don't mean to be overly-incendiary. Like I said, I believe in 'belief'... I just don't believe in forcing beliefs on others. I think religion and 'spirituality' are the providence of one's own domain. One person's morality isn't everyone's, and the drive to re-frame the church-state divide is, in my opinion, antithetical to the designs of this great country.
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
Yes, but now that it has been posted on /. I expect to get 2kbs instead of the 150kbs that I normally get from the streaming NasaTV.
So some apologies will be forthcoming?
Great! You just explained WHY the parent post is funny! Thanks!!1!!1
that they have found the second SCO licensee alive and well and living on Mars
Get back under your bridge
Forget having to wait until 2:00pm for the annoucement, I've got it right here!
(...with apologies to the JPL crew. :-P )
Disclaimer first: I am not an astronomist, but at least, I am a german native speaker...
SPIEGEL ONLINE EXKLUSIVE
"Opportunity" finds proof for martian floods
by Thorsten Dambeck
The mars rover "Opportunity" managed to find proof that once upon a time, there was flowing water on mars. As SPIEGEL ONLINE heard from sources within NASA, the US space agency will make this discovery public tonight.
[caption]Water trace: Light stones close to Oppotunity's landing spot (NASA/JPL)[/caption]
"I am flabbergasted, I am astonished", said Steve Squyres, scientific head of the rover mission, in face of the pictures from the second mars vehicle "Opportunity". No other landing zone is similar to the broad plain Meridiani Planum, where Spirit's sister probe landed. The scientist was especially taken in by the light rock formation that appeared in front of the rover's camera eyes, peering out of the dark martian sand.
After thorough mineralogical and chemical analysis of the rocks in the past few weeks, it seems clear now that Squyres spontaneous excitement was justified. As SPIEGEL ONLINE found out from sources within the US space administration, the rock formation is sedimental stone which was definitely built up in a stagnant body of water.
First suspicion hardened
The "smoking gun", the irrefutable proof for the existence of past floods on mars, is said to be a sulphate compound that was found in the rocks, and which can only come into existence in the presence of water. NASA will present these results tonight, Tuesday, at 8 PM german time on a press conference in Washington.
Already the first close-up pictures of the formation fed the suspicion of planetologists, that the rock formation may have been built by sedimentation, by the process of deposition. The single strata were clearly visible on the high-resolution snapshots from Opportunity's panoramic camera. An important contribution to the discovery can be assumed to have been made by the Mossbauer-Spectrometer "Mimos II" , built by the physicist Gostar Klingelhofer from Mainz, which is responsible for the mineralogical analysis of ferrous martian rocks.
Breakthrough with german instruments
Already on the 9th of February, German members of the rover research team reported surprising results from their APXS ("Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer") instrument. According to these reports, analyses of a light rock named "Robert E." using the spectrometer found substantially higher levels of zinc and sulphur than in all previously investigated mars rocks. "This indicates that the rock is a hardened, salt-containing sediment, and not of volcanic origin", said a member of the Max-Planck Institute for Chemistry, where the APXS spectrometer was built.
But even if non-volcanic processes are being favored more and more: Until last week, NASA scientists emphasized that various formation mechanisms -- including variants without the influence of liquid water -- are possible. Now, it seems, liquid water made the race.
With this, the US-rover would have confirmed from the ground what the european probe "Mars Express" already discovered from orbit: End of January, ESA scientists interpreted the breath-taking pictures of the red planet as clear evidence that once upon a time, rivers and seas existed on mars.
I can remember Horseshack saying things like that.
Or is some nostalgia channel running Welcome Back Kotter again?
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
They found Iraq's WMD. They were flown to Mars using Saddam's top-secret balsa wood drone program. We will now invade Mars.
Seems the first suit is going to be against the MLUG!
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
They found Hoffa!!!
Goals for 2011: 1. Stop plate tectonics. 2. Prevent animal predation. 3. End supernovae now. 4. Rid the world of evil.
n/t
You are missing the point.
Imagine, for a second, God has just crated Adam.Boy, is he ever hungry! Because his digestive tract is completely empty. In fact, he has a blood sugar level of zero. He goes unconscious and his brain dies in a few minutes. Obviously (taking one possible creationism standpoint for a second), God created Adam as if he had eaten meals in the recent past, had been innoculated with the appropriate intestinal flora, had grown through the normal proceseses of metabolism, had had the amount of exercise that would be normal for an adult human being. In other words, with all the hallmarks of a history that never actually happened. A lemma, if you will, of this viewpoint is that Adam had a belly button.
Same goes (in this theory) for the world at large. It was created as an ongoing affair, complete with geological features (including fossils) that are indicative of a history that never happened. This history can be studied in any level of detail you wish, because it is perfect and indistinguishable from the results of an actual history. In fact it is an actual history in every respect other than it did not happen.
"But, but," you will object, " this kind of theory is not scientific."
Exactly.
All long term successful relgions go through periods where they "go back to basics". Ad fontes -- "to the wellsprings" was the cry of the Reformation theologians. The Cluniacs of five hundred years earlier in their own drive to recreate primitive Christianity inaugurated many of the institutions that the Reformation theologians rejected as corrupting innovations.
The problem is that you can never truly go back.
Fundamentalism is just a more recent variation on the same theme. They are following ad fontes impulse to try to recreate what they believe to be a primitive literal belief in the scientific truth Bible. Another, perhaps more hostile view of the Bible is that it is a pre scientific view of the world, and therefore it is obsolete. Personally, I think both viewpoints are misguided. Premodern religious people were not concerned with scientific truth, with its standards of evidence and negatability. To make the Bible "scientific" is both to add something to it that was outside the kenn of its creators, and to obscure its real value. By in large early religious people were concerned about the inner quality of human life. You can see this in the rather free way they treated their myths.
The Lurianic Kabbalists, for example, completely overlayed the Torah's account with their own highly detailed and symbolic creation myth. On the Christian side, much of what we receive as standard myths about Angels, particular Lucifer, is extra-Biblical. Almost every Chrisitan takes it for granted that the serpent in the Garden was Satan. In the Genesis account, the status of the serpent is much more ambiguous; while he is cursed in the end, he is certainly no Prince of Darkness -- he is a bringer of knowledge with all its attendant pain. Furthermore, read critically and in the cultural context in which Genesis was likely written, it would appear to be a gloss of earlier creation myths and shares many familiar symbols.
Why do people need a creation myth? In part, to address their curiosity about origins, a need that is now better satisfied through palentology, geology and cosmology. But curiosity about natural history is only a secondary reason; after all most people can make it through the day, the year, perhaps even their entire lifetime without giving any through to the creation the universe. The reason people need creation myths is that they need some kind of working hypothesis to questions that have no final answer: Why am I here? Why is life the way it is, full of pain and suffering?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Yes. The surface of Mars is saturated with very concentrated water solution at near-phase-state conditions. It has been in this state for many millions of years and represents the tail-off of much more vigerous dessicatory processes. More importantly the components of the solution strongly pro-indicate prior biological processes. These findings will be presented and also plans for VROTSM (Very Rapid Off The Shelf Mission) to test samples. We also hope to get emergency funding for a mission to bring home some of this urea solution to the lab.
Martian in a chevy nova stole a wheel off the rover casue he had a flat tire.
...and Ford F-150 tire tracks perhaps?
The Redneck planet!
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
The summary of the study can be found at USC here.
I think I know what they did with the apes that came back from the early spaceflights.
They put them in charge of NASA TV programming.
I mean, J.H.C, when the "big spacewalk" was happening a week or two ago I tuned into NASA TV, and what did I get to watch?
**NOTHING**
Well, not quite nothing, a grainy image of the command center with an even grainer occasional camera view of a bigscreen projection of their track, which was 100 times worse than simply going to J-Track. Do you seriously mean to tell me that NASA controllers did not have a video feed of or from their own astronauts outside the station, and that all they had was nearly unintelligable acryonym laced audio? Or is it that they simply can't afford a $5 video splitter?
( During the hubble repairs a few years ago at one point they showed nothing but a video feed of an inanimate obscure connector between the shuttle and the telescope. Apparently the shuttle didn't have enough downlink bandwidth, and they needed them all for the job at hand. )
In any case if NASA and the administrationis so concerned about public image and if they really want people to get enthused about spaceflight, how about simply spending an extra $5000 for a single extra camera on the station to provide a view of the interesting things going on?
Throw in another camera to give us a LIVE view of the earth on another channel - 24/7. How many of you wouldn't LOVE to see a 400 mile wide live video feed from space of the earth, and follow it along with J-Track, a recent GOES image, and your atlas / globe, dynamic topographic and/or terraserver reference feed?
Isn't this supposed to be the information age?
Can you imagine how utterly amazing it would be for science teachers to be able to plan a science/geography class around an hour of that each couple weeks with a few groups of kids around 5 PCs all watching the different feeds and trying to match them to the live feed? Add in a few kids using google groups and google news to provide live socio/political/weather commentary, etc etc.
While some are busy handing out labels of ignorance, let me try to clear something up.
Fundamentalists are a subset of Protestants who are a subset of all Christians. Protestants believe that the Bible is the sole source of understanding the divine. Fundamentalists believe that the Bible should be literally interpreted as fact. The rest of us don't. Thank you.
When you don't have to literally interpret every word, hour, or day, there's not a lot of conflict with current scientific theory.
For instance, the order of events is basically correct: darkness, then light, then stars, then planets, then oceans, then land, plants, animals, and finally people. Not bad for people writing ~5000 years ago.
And the apple-from-the-tree-of-knowledge thing -- how is that not the story of humanity in general and geekdom in particular: germ warfare, nerve gas, nuclear proliferation, grey goo, cloning, cyborgification, etc. etc.
for this years Elvis lookalike competition on Mars.
The event has been cancelled, due to some unforeseen, unfortunate events.
Dr. Ed Weiler, Associate Administrator, Office of Space Science at NASA Headquarters and the fellow panelists have been killed in an accedident on their way to Washington DC.
NASA released a prompt statement, that due to the huge impact of the originally planned announcement, only the killed NASA employees knew what they were about to reveal.
There will be an investigation launched into the accident, which is currently described by the FBI as CIA, as "normal looking, absolutely non-suspicios" unfortunate turn of events, which happens every day all over the world. So far no sign of any notes about the originally planned NASA announcement have been recovered.
Those spherules have HATCHED!
Following is the panel they will have available for interviews in an hour. Note that there is a geologist, but no biologist or anything similar. Thus I would guess that they found strong evidence for water, rather than stumbling across bacteria.
# Professor Steve Squyres, Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Principal Investigator, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
# Professor John Grotzinger, MER science team geologist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
# Dr. Benton C. Clark III, MER science team member and Chief Scientist of Space Exploration, Lockheed Martin Space Systems Astronautics Operations, Denver
# Dr. Joy Crisp, MER Project Scientist, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
# Dr. Jim Garvin, Lead Scientist for Mars and the Moon, NASA Headquarters
and promptly sank into the muck? Next time they should make sure Mars probes can float...
I swear, the closer you get to Kennedy Space Center, the less chance they will offer it.
Have you asked? We used to have it on Time Warner and it was removed in favour of WB (I kid not). So, I went down to the local store and put in a request for it to be re-added. 2 months later, they added the channel again.
Versign sues ICANN over the right to reserve .mars TLD names.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
It won't be another Segway... where everyone's built up this huge buzz only to find out there may have been water on Mars.
I think its disgusting that they arent using Quicktime. NASA, please fix that snafu.
"Landed in an area of mars where water once drenched the environment."
They found water!
That is the big news!
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
They just announced the surface where Opportunity is was "drenched" with water for an extended period of time.
Left shift 1 for e-mail...
be quiet, petulant one.
BRIEFING: Opportunity Site was once *Drenched*
Yeah the little blueberries are evidence of water flowing in the past.
Me physicist. Me make rockets.
OT Rant, but this is something I deal with everyday.
I work for a public school system (webmaster) and I have a lot of in-school dealings with teachers and students. In my specific county, there are countless good, dedicated teachers that come up with excellent ideas (like yours) that would entertain students brains, teach them new things, wow them with the power of science and education - all of those good things that makes a kid want to learn on their own - but these ideas are shot down by the board of education and administration.
Why?
There are so many problems. I went through 4 iterations of this paragraph before giving up. Modern parents (25-35) don't have adequate coping mechanisms for real life stress largely due to PCorrect thinking/training of the past decades. I have to better explain myself, but most of the day to day problems I see come from that root cause.
Press briefing highlight: Jarasite rocks found at Meridiani Plannum, rocks here were definitely modified by liquid water.
Here I am, stuck at work on the late shift at 7:15pm (UK), trying to read what the big announcement is from NASA, and every other comment is banging on about religion ?!?! Guys, you are all so off-topic it's untrue! GET A ROOM! I want to read about Water on Mars and stuff like that!
Very interesting...
Please elaborate, I don't care how "imperfect" you think your description is... Perhaps just give us an actual example or three, I'm sure the rest of us will spot the trend, especially considering your own suggestion of the "root cause".
OT to your point - I do realize that what I threw out could be *quite* ambitious, especially for an "average" class of kids. I've only done a few years of TA'ing 1st year university labs while in grad school, no High School experience. But I also know that human beings don't really shine unless they are given a SOLID daunting challenge that forces them to overcome it. But you're right, I could see a lot of unexpected negative spin-offs that might be a bit to handle....
Ahhh, I don't know. It's really hard to tell what might happen until someone actually tries something!!! (And you can take that statement as liberally and as generically as you like).
They just aren't smart enough to carry it.
Water, water, everywhere! But not a drop to drink!
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Heh, I went through this whole paragraph also and realized I wasn't really saying anything useful.
A lot of parents like to complain because they have an elevated sense of entitlement, that their child is somehow more deserving of the school system than other children, etc. Quite literally, the parent wants to accomplish X, and doesn't care if Y, Z, or A^2 + B^2 / C^2 gets in the way, or is inconvenienced. The school system has faced threats of law suits with severe monetary damages so often that innovation and creativity is (figuratively) no longer permitted. The position of the staff attorney is to always err on the side of the parent over the teacher/staff to avoid a potential $-draining suit. Good teachers lose their initiative to innovate for fear of a professional reprimand (because if they get in trouble, they are automatically martyr'd). Parents continue with a cycle of being unaware of the consequences of their actions and feel victorious in their 'call for change'.
It's hard to give specific examples (also, don't want to get in trouble - JIC), but in my system (like many others in my state), the problems are from patronizing the parents ad nauseam and allowing the true point of education to get lost in this overly litigious age.
More or less, there's very little tolerance anymore. Those who attempt to cope and find a middle ground get overrun by those who are on a mission.
Oh, and to give you a literal example of why your seriously great(!!) idea of tracking along with the space station wouldn't work, I can envision (based on past incidents) parents complaining that either there aren't 1) enough computers for the studetns to use individually - so it shouldn't be done), or 2) the child doesn't have a home computer - so it shouldn't be done, or 3) the technology is a waste of money when there are other problems (like not enough books) or something.. or 4) teaching rocketry/astronomy/space science isn't agreeable to 1 parents religion - so it can't be taught on religious reasoning to all, etc.
The state of the modern american's ability to tolerate and to cope is truly disappointing.
Wow - I see what you mean.
: |
Consider me truly disappointed.
....the rover has apparently also found an empty Coke can and a potato chip packet. NASA officials are keeping tight-lipped about these findings, only saying that these don't necessarily prove signs of 'intelligent' life on Mars.
-psy
Is there a summary we can find somewhere? Or even, god forbid, a recodrd copy of the briefing?
Any links?
Thanks!