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NASA Says Mars Once "Drenched With Water"
NASA is currently holding a press conference (carried live on NASA TV) where they are discussing findings from the Mars rovers. They are saying that the crater that the second rover has landed in has convincing evidence that it was once drenched or covered in liquid water. They cite the tiny spherules, odd holes in the rocks, sulfur in the spectrometric analyses, and evidence of an iron sulfate hydrate (a hydrate is a chemical compound which includes water molecules in the crystal lattice). Update: 03/02 19:45 GMT by M : CNN has a story, or see the NASA press release.
If these rocks are sedimentary, then, as Squyres said, that has to be our main target for a sample return mission. Because sedimentary rocks are going to have fossils.
forking fp
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No...
Perhaps the landing site, but NASA has not concluded that Mars was drenched.
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That there once has been water on Mars, considering that a lot of comets contains water.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
HEy that is some cool news guys!
Welcome our tiny bacterial martian overlords
I love how this story was posted during the opening remarks of the press conference before they could go into much detail.
Blaze a trail to the New World
Some creative company wants to find, and market this 'untouched natural' water?
The Mothership
This has to be it now..
Way back when, the earth was the centre of the universe.
The sun became the center of the universe.
We found out we were one star in a galaxy that was the centre of the universe..
Then we found there were countless billions of stars.
Now we find another local planet with ancient water on it.. The next find I expect is simple life living on Mars.
How can any religion survive that revelation?
Simon.
GET YOUR ASS TO MARS
So Mars haven't taken a bath or shower in ages. No wonder they're finding crusty salt brine residue.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
"... the lense on the camera got really fogged up. That's when we really got suspicious."
Noah's lucky he didn't get stranded! ;-)
when God flooded the Earth for 40 days and 40 nights there was some spillover on Mars, too.
I'm heading up for happy hour.
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Its not too late to watch: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer/landing.cfm
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
"They are saying that the crater that the second rover has landed in has convincing evidence that it was once drenched or covered in liquid water."
Liquid water?! Holy crap!
Maybe I'm just an idiot, but where does the water go? Vapour in the atmosphere? Did the hydrogen and oxygen break apart somehow? Chemical reactions with something else? Did it just float off into space? Those all seem unlikely to me, but then, what do I know?
can be found here
-caf
I once carried jism too.
I thought it was common knowledge that Mars had ice caps at either pole. Isn't ice made of water? And isn't it natural to assume that that ice must have been liquid water at one point in Mars' history?
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And then there are fossils. Which means the next NASA mission will be funded by Halliburton after all.
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
He said that there was once water, and that the rocks were layed down in the water.
Sure, He knew He could make everything correctly, but perhaps He wasn't sure how the whole concept of "Free Will" would work, so Mars was a dry run. It could be a wasteland now because a bunch of the Martians developed advanced weapons of mass destruction and ended up using them on each other. This could be an object lesson for us, much like Sodom and Gammorrah.
nt
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
I for one welcome our new Water 0verlords.
CAN mars run Loonix?
No Article to be F... Read!
You're gonna slashdot NASA TV now, dammit! I fully expect my satellite feed to start stuttering and flashing to black in a few minutes...
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
Hmm... So its somewhat safe to take off my tinfoil hat and comeout of my bunker? Or should I put on my life jacket now? Or maybe I should just get back to work cause this water isn't there, and was on mars.....
Victory is gained, not in knowing your opponents next move, but in preempting them.
To equip 2 Rovers with the best water detecting equipment known to man and how do you find water?
You get mud stuck to the tyres!
But in all seriosness, Good on NASA.
But it certainly makes a more life seeking mission like beagle 2 all the more important.
Nasa: We possibly might have maybe found evidence there might have been some water on Mars. You see we found these interesting blueberry spheroids, blah.
Us: Um, yeah. Billions of dollars for what again?
I see less and less point in dumping billions into the mismanaged lap of NASA. They either cover up any interesting find (tin foil hat time, yeah, blah), or there IS NOTHING INTERESTING or relevant to find. Either way, I am sure there are some starving children around the world that would appreciate some food and can get along fine without velcro (which we all know was given to us by T'pol's great grandmother anyway).
It will be interesting to see how the media handles this. By scope, this is probably the biggest scientific discovery in a lifetime!
[sig]darkfus[/sig]
RTFA! Oh, wait a minute...
In Soviet Russia, liquid waters you!
What's this "religion" you talk of?
Your generalization colors you stupid, specially because most religions don't even touch the subject of extraterrestrial life.
...according to the PR, the offer is only valid "should NASA announce the discovery of conclusive evidence of an ocean on Mars between now and February 29, 2004."
Science: Em tells NASA: PROVE IT, stop sensationalizing.
Troll or not a troll?
You, with the mod points, decide.
Sent from your iPad.
they will claim it is an act of satan, trying to decieve us to bring us over to the dark side. duh!
on the news conf (NASA TV) and the story posted on their site, they say " the clues are only tantalizing, not conclusive, about whether the environment was watery when the rocks originally formed." grrr. thats all they had to say ??? i was expecting at least a "conclusive" statement from this special/hyped news conf.
Well, the news may not have been announced by feb 29, but the evidence may have been found by feb 29.
Liberty.
here is a pic of what: conspiracy I tell you
Warning to Mars:
Prepare for shuck and jive followed by shlock and nah.
This would be great news for the space program, as Bush would make the invasion and conquest of Mars a national priority.
Finding God in a Dog
and at the end of the conference, they'll pretend that it's over and say:
and one more thing... we found life on Mars!
Interesting...That means we could possibly come back with a another rover that not only could look for life, but could possibly "repair/rejuvinate" the current rover by 'sweeping" the dust off of the solar panels? I would imagine just leaving the rover would be interesting to engineers and scientists to see what happens to a man made object that sits out in the open for extended periods of time....good information if you want to build stuff on Mars.
Anybody out there like to comment? Is it a possibility? Could we come back with another rover and get Opportunity working again after it runs out of juice?
0wnt
Also, Methionine is an essential amino acid that is not synthesized by the body and must be obtained from food. It is one of the "sulphur-containing" amino acids and is important in many body functions.
It is likely that sulphur, coupled with the different ferrous hydrides can produce viable conditions for life.
This is a troll if I ever saw one but I'll bite.
The idea that God created the universe with countless planets, stars and habitable worlds is not in conflict with at least Catholicism. I'm willing to bet that there are a lot of other religions who would have no problem with such an idea but I'm no religious scholar.
If I recall correctly, nowhere in the Bible does it say that Earth is the only world in the universe or even the only one with life, intelligent or not. It's kind of an open question.
Please give me a verse if I'm wrong.
Blaze a trail to the New World
If you hadn't noticed, most fundamentalists aren't too big on the whole "evidence" thing. Religion will survive, as it always has, by ignoring any revelations contradictory to the One True Fairy Tale.
The conference is going on now and theres new news: Not only was there a large amount of water, there's good evidence that it was salty.
I found the live video from NASA here:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
They are talking about it right now it is real interesting.
Someone must have been thirsty!
No link in the article. Here is the press release: NASA Press Release
Water is water. Water on another planet is water on another planet!
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/mars_2003_05. html
Bush Lies On the Record.
When can we harvest seafood from Mars?
I'm listening to it now... they keep talking about rats holes!
Clue to NASA: Rat hole implies rat, which require water. Rats have water in them and therefore they float. If the rat floats, it must be a witch so it is safe to conclude Mars is or was inhabited by a bunch of witch rats.
NOW, NASA Headquarters:
- Scientist working on Mars water team have broken salt world record by saying "Salt, salt based, salty, salt salt" over fifty times in under 3 minutes.. and it seems there's no way of stoping them!
Stay tuned
Pass the hat please.
.
I predicted today's result a few days ago and only got moderated to a 2.
Previous postingan ill wind that blows no good
But where does Jesus come into the picture? If he came to earth to die for our sins, did he also go to other planets and die for their sins?
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressrelea ses/20040302a.html
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They mentioned that they are going to go check the nearby rock outcropping named "Big Bend" and do basically the same that they did on this rock, in order to see if these rocks were laid down there. I think they're checking exactly that, i.e. whether or not this whole area is laid down with rocks of the same origin (soaked in water), or if they were thrown here by a collision or something.
They said that they weren't sure if the rocks were sedimentary or not. From the sounds of it they aren't, but they did happen to be "soaked in water" or whatever the quote was, allowing the concretions to form in spaces in already existing rock. They haven't found any evidence of layering yet, as far as I know, which would mean sedimentary.
Scientists have concluded the part of Mars that NASA's Opportunity rover is exploring was soaking wet in the past.
Evidence the rover found in a rock outcrop led scientists to the conclusion. Clues from the rocks' composition, such as the presence of sulfates, and the rocks' physical appearance, such as niches where crystals grew, helped make the case for a watery history.
"Liquid water once flowed through these rocks. It changed their texture, and it changed their chemistry," said Dr. Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., principal investigator for the science instruments on Opportunity and its twin, Spirit. "We've been able to read the tell-tale clues the water left behind, giving us confidence in that conclusion."
Dr. James Garvin, lead scientist for Mars and lunar exploration at NASA Headquarters, Washington, said, "NASA launched the Mars Exploration Rover mission specifically to check whether at least one part of Mars ever had a persistently wet environment that could possibly have been hospitable to life. Today we have strong evidence for an exciting answer: Yes."
Opportunity has more work ahead. It will try to determine whether, besides being exposed to water after they formed, the rocks may have originally been laid down by minerals precipitating out of solution at the bottom of a salty lake or sea.
The first views Opportunity sent of its landing site in Mars' Meridiani Planum region five weeks ago delighted researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., because of the good fortune to have the spacecraft arrive next to an exposed slice of bedrock on the inner slope of a small crater.
The robotic field geologist has spent most of the past three weeks surveying the whole outcrop, and then turning back for close-up inspection of selected portions. The rover found a very high concentration of sulfur in the outcrop with its alpha particle X-ray spectrometer, which identifies chemical elements in a sample.
"The chemical form of this sulfur appears to be in magnesium, iron or other sulfate salts," said Dr. Benton Clark of Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver. "Elements that can form chloride or even bromide salts have also been detected."
At the same location, the rover's Mossbauer spectrometer, which identifies iron-bearing minerals, detected a hydrated iron sulfate mineral called jarosite. Germany provided both the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer and the Mossbauer spectrometer. Opportunity's miniature thermal emission spectrometer has also provided evidence for sulfates.
On Earth, rocks with as much salt as this Mars rock either have formed in water or, after formation, have been highly altered by long exposures to water. Jarosite may point to the rock's wet history having been in an acidic lake or an acidic hot springs environment.
The water evidence from the rocks' physical appearance comes in at least three categories, said Dr. John Grotzinger, sedimentary geologist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge: indentations called "vugs," spherules and crossbedding.
Pictures from the rover's panoramic camera and microscopic imager reveal the target rock, dubbed "El Capitan," is thoroughly pocked with indentations about a centimeter (0.4 inch) long and one-fourth or less that wide, with apparently random orientations. This distinctive texture is familiar to geologists as the sites where crystals of salt minerals form within rocks that sit in briny water. When the crystals later disappear, either by erosion or by dissolving in less-salty water, the voids left behind are called vugs, and in this case they conform to the geometry of possible former evaporite minerals.
Round particles the size of BBs are embedded in the outcrop. From shape alone, these spherules might be formed from volcanic eruptions, from lofting of molten droplets by a meteor impact, or from accumulation of minerals coming out of solution inside a porous, water-soaked rock. Opportunity's observations that the sp
Victory is gained, not in knowing your opponents next move, but in preempting them.
http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly .html
Following that link will register your vote for "water on mars" - you won't get to see what the poll is first.
Follow this link instead if you want to see your options before voting.
My amazing wife - Artist, Author, Philosopher - Laurie M
Funny, but nowhere near as cool as when Taco Bell planted the Mir target in the south pacific.
Hydrogen, meet Oxygen. I think it's safe to say that there will be a spark between the two of you followed by some chemistry and some, er, offspring.
> sedimentary rocks are going to have fossils. ... and fossils means fuel, which in turn means they must have WMDs.
Oh, no! Bush is going to liberate Mars!!
water on mars... is the red powder some new flavor of KoolAid??
Lizard "Never let them set limits on your mind!"
Before they even got to the good bits about the Ewoks...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Oooh... so maybe humans were originally on Mars... and they screwed up their planet with pollution, overuse of resources, etc., but managed to transport a few people to Earth to start over...
And maybe we'll look to terraform Mars and move there once we've hosed this planet too. The cycle continues...
Heh... yeah. Anyway, back to work now.
In Soviet Russia
- Tiny Bacterial Overlords Rule YOU !
Obviously NASA knew this earlier, and held back their findings in deference to the all-powerful fast-food seafood lobby!!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
If only to send a STFU to Fundos who deny evolution, etc. Of course, they think this is all being transmitted from a sound stage in Burbank.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
It sure sounds as if NASA didn't really want to find water so soon, coz' they are now busy explaining why there needs to be a lot of follow up research to find even more water on Mars.
They must actually fear that instead of this being scientific good news, it will be bad news for funding.
Maybe they can better go the way ESA went and start searching life directly...
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Maybe they are not familiar with the mechanisms on Mars, and are just making the educated guess with will help in future funding.
Get a free ipod.
Is it completely beyond the realm of possibility that there are still basic life forms (other than microbes) living on/in Mars?
After all, they say cockroaches will survive a nuclear holocaust...
Just food for thought.
Archeabacteria are closely related to the oldest life on earth. Many are thermophilic, acid tolerant, anaerobic, sulphur-loving microbes. Just the sort that would be happy in the acidic hot springs hypothesized on ancient Mars. And they go dormant when the conditions are not just right so the ride to Earth on some rock fragments splashed out by a meteor impact would have been in suspended animation. People who can't grasp the Out of Africa concept are really gonna have trouble with Out of Mars.
Maybe I'm just an idiot...
You left yourself wide open on that one...
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
Wasn't Dune (Arrakis), and the Sahara desert, once drenched with water? In Dune, the Worms were the cause of its climatic change while I forgot what happened to the Sahara (was it new mountain ranges forming in the north). I think that a lot of places on earth changed from forests to deserts because the mountain ranges blocked the flow of rainclouds inland. I doubt that Mars was dried because of mountain ranges so I have no idea what I am talking about here :p
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It sucked.
Now I switched to a Mac, and It's covered with men!!
Ahhhhhhh...
Much better!
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Haven't we known Mars had water for quite some time? Even a few weeks ago the Europeans confirmed this, and I remember reading years ago that evidence for water was found. Or is it just that this particular spot had water that is significant?
didn't they know about these long ago?
Vapornews.
because christianity says that the only way to salvation is through jesus. Either there are jesus clones on other planets, or we have to accept that all aliens are dammed to the fires of hell. And so we can hapilly convert or kill them.
It's burried in huge subterranean (submartian?) cavens. These are all interconnected. Then there's this huge nuclear reactor, which if turned on, will terraform the surface in less time than it would take the governor of California to suffocate in the present Martian atmosphere.
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What you do today will cost you a day of your life
Crap. Fine print says...
If only they could have booked the conference room for the press conference 2 days ago instead of using it to hold Jerry's retirement party.'cause I *really* wanted to have that free jumbo shrimp.
dammit.
I thought the same thing, but it has run beautifully so far... knock on my monitor!
Someone says
Humans are Really from Mars and brought all the water with them to earth ?
ine 3..2..1..liftoff
-no broken link
So, Mars was really wet at one time?
Now there is a lot of evedence that there was a large flood on earth and some sciencts don't want to look at it.
So now we look at Mars and say it could have had lots of water. &nsbp This seams a little intersting.
The downside being, if there was any chance of saving hubble before, it's gone now. I heard the story on NPR a few days ago... something like $200 million in parts are built and ready to go, just waiting on a shuttle mission that would extend hubble's lifespan beyond 2006. "safety concerns" were cited as the cause, but reduced budgeting due to mars' popularity is a far more likely reason. (listen to the audio stream of the program)
*sigh* The bell tolls for yet another victim of society's apathy.
You don't need fossils to have sedmentary rocks. Shale is sedimentary and doesn't need to contain any fossils to exist. They would be the most interesting rocks to return though since they would most likely contain a layered time history of the planet.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Add some mass to the planet for added gravtiy, massive heat increase to melt the ice caps and creat liquid water...
Make it pay per view to keep it profitable!
We can call it a Weapon of Mass Creation!
WE CAN'T LOSE!
Bah...*yawn*
Frankly I'm disappointed. Until now they roam around and claim that the findings are not wholly conclusive:
"The images obtained to date are not adequate for a definitive answer. So scientists plan to maneuver Opportunity closer to the features for a better look. "We have tantalizing clues, and we're planning to evaluate this possibility in the near future," Grotzinger said.
Besides hydrated minerals were already hinted by Spirit. One of the very first press releases pointed to that fact. Besides this is not the only weird thing between Opportunity and Spirit outputs. If one compares the first wave from results from Spirit with Opportunity's then it seems that the second robot is clearly giving very thiny results. Until now I could not see broadscale spectral and infrared analysis like the ones Spirit did. Maybe I'm missing something but frankly it seems that data feed from Meridiani goes a long way from it could.
PS: To those who are discussing theologies... Frankly don't get you people. Try to find a super SF author by the name of Nicolau Cusanus and his bestseller "De docta ignorantia". He already discussed a lot of what you keep rumbling till now...
Plant?? There's plants on Mars?!
NASA spent $860 on two rovers to tell everyone that Mars once had water! Amazing. Just give us another billion and we'll tell you that found evidence of bacteria. Wow. For another billion, we'll go to Neptune and tell you that once, Neptune had dirt. Wow.
...and your Sea Monkeys (tm) will come to life!
Well, if you believe the ads run by cable companies then the mere mention of water should cause your signal to go out.
Are they(NASA) suggesting that oceans worth of water exists now only as hydrates and the like? I hate to be the critic, but "the planet soaked it up?" They're going to have to do a little better before I get excited.
The belief that you know a thing is a most perfect way to prevent learning.
If Mars does have water and possibly life, wouldn't that mean that we would have effectively quarantine Mars from human or any other biological contact? If not, we would run the risk of destroying an entire planetary ecosystem no matter how small or primitive it might be.
Life on Mars would prevent terraforming or perhaps any human colonization at all.
I printing off my "Save the Martian Microbes!" bumper stickers right now.
The results they are finding imply water was in a liquid state for a significant amount of time. It was long enough for hydrated minerals to form and salt lake signatures (sulfur and bromine deposits) to form, similar to what forms in dry salt lakes.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
2. The images obtained to date are not adequate for a definitive answer.
It's very possible that there was water. We are, however, extrapolating that from our experiences on Earth, and from a very limited set of data returned by the rovers. I would love for nothing more than evidence of liquid water be found, but this is an alien landscape and may not adhere to the same rules as our own.
I've been watching the newscast,
I cant help but notice that the main elements they are seeing here exist in liquid form at very low temperatures. They are also grouped together closely on the periodic table of elements.
chlorine liquid -100.98 C to -35 C
bromine liquid -7 C to 58 C
rough idea of temperature on mars here -15 C degrees Celsius at the moment.
Its entirely plausible that there is a large quantity of liquid chlorine in meridiani planum. The downside is of course that chlorine is often used to kill off nasty bacteria in swimming pools.
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I'm not going to bother with whether intelligence implies spirit or not.
I wonder what the hotels are like at the coast there on mars.
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who dispute science with religion belief..
I have two workds for you..
*Giordano Bruno*
They have stated that they found signs of sulfur and bromine compound desposits (amoung other things). The amounts of each correspond to their depth in the ground which is representative of a drying salt lake. As the lake dries different minerals form deposits over time in a layering effect.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
You have to account for the Martian pressure.
Let's pretend that future missions to Mars discover that there was once living organisms on the planet.
Other than the knowledge of that fact, what's the payoff? How does humankind here on earth benefit from this discovery?
Personally, I think the vastness of the universe practically guarantees that life exists in some other solar system. So what's the big deal about finding out if life once existed on a neighbor planet in our own solar system?
Mars a different kind of environment, maybe there is life on there that we can't see? We probably brought some bacteria up there with the rover that's currently spreading and infecting mars with earth diseases ... the current life on mars is going to get infected and grow cancer, the Mars diseases are going to spread and will eventually infect the rover .... when the rover comes back to earth The Mars Disease is going to spread the earth and make our planet look like Mars.
-ko
gotta love em
;)
If we bring back a few samples with the help of a robotic probe, EVEN IF they dont contain any fossils, those samples will still be invaluable to science.
But hey, we can always hope the samples contain Sand Kings...
2) ???
3) Life on Mars
4) Profit!
Marvin's going to be awfully mad when we come there to drill for oil.
Chris Knight is my hero.
The Raelians were right!
Which is better:
a) live on mars
or
b) sex with a mare
That guy uses the word "percolate" too much.
This doesn't "disprove" God. But it DOES affect theology.
Guy Consolmagno ponders in his book "Brother Astronomer" about whether or not Jesus visited other planets and whether or not they had their own versions of the crucifixion or if the one here was "truly" universal.
Does the final war at Armageddon mean the end of Earth or the Universe, or just humanity?
Certainly these are questions specifically for Christians, but each religion is going to have to rethink at least some of its traditions when man goes to the stars.
(Except maybe Scientology... Unless there really AREN'T Thetans...)
We need the wood. To build another Mars mission!
Of course you heard the story on NPR, along with stories about how eating raw eggs kills you, how children need to wear helmets while riding bicycles, and how the sky is falling. Oh yeah, and ABB all the way dude!
Whether we get to see a 15 billion year old black hole or not is not as important as infusing a generation with the spirit of adventure, the way the Moon landings did. The Hubble studies history. Flying to Mars MAKES it. If you want to focus on the past, fine, let the rest of us taxpayers focus on the future.
And stop sighing, you sanctimonious prick.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
they had found some Spice.
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stated in this article last year
-caf
Other images show the rover tracks clearly are being made in "mud", with water being pressed out of that material, Levin said. "That water promptly freezes and you can see reflecting ice. That's clearly ice. It could be nothing else," he said, "and the source is the water that came out of the mud."
Why they are all talking about the water of the past and not about the "mud" which is more exciting news about the "current" water. Also why nobody asking the question regarding this?
Mars has a very weak magnetic field since we speculate that its core has mostly cooled. This means that the planet is poorly protected from harsh solar and cosmic radiation, which is strong enough to break down water into oxygen and hydrogen. These atoms would indeed just float off into space, since the gravatational pull of the planet is not strong enough to retain such light atoms.
That's why I'm not holding out much hope for terraforming Mars. But that doesn't mean we can't still live on it, just in protected chambers on the surface.
Water alone isn't enough to create life. You need that water to exist for millions of years. So, the next task is to try to determine how long that water existed for.
You forgot the part where Xenu packed people and hydrogen bombs into the calderas of vulcanoes and detonated them.
Hmm.. no, that doesn't make any sense at all
...that that's why there are canals. And y'all thought he was no rocket scientist.
"Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love." --William Shakespeare ('Love's Labors Lost')
Where does it say the sun revolves around the earth? That didn't stop the Catholic church from holding to that belief for over a thousand years. Religion isn't based on science anyway, it is based on faith and believers shouldn't look to science to confirm their faith. It has to come from the heart, not the head. Believers tried that with Copernicus and they learned their lesson, someday the anti-evolution crowd will do the same.
I guess that is why it is called "faith".
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
"NASA scientists say the Mars rovers have found what they were looking for: Hard evidence that the red planet was once 'soaking wet.'"
Soaking wet with the tears of taxpayers.
MARS 1, EARTH 0
The information will help us predict situations on Earth and different systems.
OK there was once water on Mars. What caused it to dissapear? What caused Mars to lose it's atmosphere and magnetosphere?
How long did it take?
Can it be reversed?
Could, will and/or is this happening to Earth?
You must answer one question before you can answer others and ask more questions. Our curiosity put us up there to expand our knowledge of our home system. Until we can understand what is here we will not have what is needed to properly understand what is going on farther out.
I can't use my sig - my computer can't read my handwriting.
Actually, bacteria do in fact leave fossil records
I don't know much (actually, anything) regarding purported non-carbon "life," but regular ol' bacteria can leave fossils, believe it or not.
I used all my modpoints this morning, or I would have given you +1, Prophetic.
Oh, wait. . .
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
Well, it does specifically say in Genesis 1:1 that god created the "heavens [sky and stars] and the earth" not "heavens and the earths". This is repeated in 2:1 and 2:4. A bible literalist would say that it clearly points to only one world with life (assuming they accept the existence of other planets).
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
lazy slashdotters tend to morph into lazy moderators:)
Which is worse? At least it sounds like Mars might be habitable again where as anything on Venus would melt in seconds. I think us men did a better job over-all ... or less worse anyhow
Frankly, what you just said makes no sense.
But Pi does equal 3, to one digit of accuracy.
If you're going to put forward a stupid argument for a position, you have to take the stupid counterexamples.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The NASA scientist held up a sample of Jarosite. For the curious, here's a definition. Note -- the page referenced has several very cool links for more information.
THE MINERAL JAROSITE
Chemistry: KFe3(SO4)2(OH)6, Potassium Iron Sulfate Hydroxide.
Class: Sulfates
Group: Alunite
Uses: Only as mineral specimens.
Specimens
Jarosite is not a common mineral. It is closely related to the mineral natrojarosite. Jarosite is isostructural with natrojarosite which means that they have the same crystal structure but different chemistries. In this case, jarosite contains potassium instead of natrojarosite's sodium (natro is derived from the Latin for sodium, natrium, from where sodium gets its symbol, Na). The two minerals are difficult to distinguish without a chemical test.
Both minerals are isostructural with alunite with a formula of KAl3(SO4)2(OH)6, who lends its name to the Alunite Group of which all three minerals belong.
The symmetry of jarosite is the same as the members of the Tourmaline Group. Crystals of jarosite however do not form prismatic crystals like those of the typical tourmaline mineral. Jarosite's crystals are more flattened and resemble nearly cubic rhombohedrons. The "rhombohedrons" are actually a combination of two trigonal pyramids.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS:
Color is an amber yellow or brown.
Luster is vitreous to resinous.
Transparency: Crystals are transparent to translucent.
Crystal System is trigonal; 3 m
Crystal Habits include tabular to flattened rhombohedral looking crystals. The "rhombohedrons" are actually a combination of two trigonal pyramids. Crystals are somewhat scarce and small, more commonly as earthy masses, films or crusts, botryoidal and granular.
Cleavage is good in one direction but only seen in the larger crystals.
Fracture is uneven.
Hardness is 2.5 - 3.5.
Specific Gravity is approximately 2.9 - 3.3 (average to slightly heavy for translucent minerals, but hard to obtain from crusts)
Streak is a pale yellow.
Associated Minerals are barite, turquoise, galena, goethite, limonite, hematite and other iron minerals.
Notable Occurrences include Jaroso ravine, Sierra Almagrera, Spain and Iron Arrow Mine, Colorado; Maricopa Co., Arizona; Idaho and California, USA.
Best Field Indicators are crystal habit, associations, color and hardness.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
then the water and dinosaurs came; but they got too big and fat and turned into oil. Then the arabs came...
Personally I wasn't eager to combine our "bouncing with airbags" landing approach with nuclear power -- until I googled a little and found the RHUs (Radioisotope Heater Units) on Sojourner. The Viking missions also used nuclear reactors in some capacity. As of a year ago, there also seemed to be specific plans for a long-term Mars rover with a reactor, to be launched in 2009.
They've worked some on the idea, anyway: Design Concept for a Nuclear Reactor-Powered Mars Rover.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
and I shouldn't snap at the bait, but isn't it the case that, by definition, to get from no life to life without creationism you need abiogenesis? You don't "admit" abiogenesis is required, you believe that happened if you think (as I do) that creationism is a bad joke pushed too far. And in any case, Dawkins is just a scientific populariser with a big ego, (he thinks he's "bright" for being an atheist, clearly has some identity issues) and hardly authoritative.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Do you mean "water alone isn't enough for life to evolve"? Is there an 'evolutionary recipe' of some sort for life to come into being for which H2O and Time are the main ingredients?
Your monitor is staring at you.
How can any religion survive that revelation?
Christianity has always survived by reinterpreting the source material. Be it the motions of the planets, the age of the earth, catastrophism, the role of special creation in the modern world, the possible existance of life on other planets, the immutability of species, or what-have-you, Christians merely proclaim that all of their previous interpretations were wrong, but they know the truth, now.
They will pretty much always be able to do this because virtually all of the information in the Bible is heavily dependent on interpretation. Much like a cold-reader, if you provide vague enough information it can be made to fit any data.
A more interesting question is "How many predictions about the universe, founded upon readings of the Bible, have turned out to be true?" The measure of a theory, after all, is how well it makes predictions. In this case the answer is "few, or none". Biblical scholars did predict that the Earth was the center of the universe, that the Sun orbited the Earth, that the surface of the Earth was static (not shaped by plate tectonics and erosion), that Earth was the only home of life (and, indeed, the only planet), that species were static, that the Earth (and the universe) were a few thousand years old, and on, and on, and on.
They have been consistently wrong. If this were an issue of science instead of faith the Christian cosmology would be dead -- its predictive value is zero.
But of course all scientific knowledge is tentative. Even with overwhelming evidence the strongest statement a scientist will make is that a particular theory is the best fit to the data, or that a particular theory is a very poor fit to the data. Faith, then, trumps all. If you believe in a particular story just because you like it you can always wedge yourself into that space in the philosophy of science, however infinitesimal, that allows that our understanding may be wrong.
http://www.enterprisemission.com/tides.htm
ABSTRACT
Conventional models of Mars, based on measurements by initial Mariner unmanned spacecraft, found an arid, apparently ancient environment without current liquid water. This prompted subsequent, highly negative assessments regarding Mars' history, and the difficulty for the origin and/or evolution of higher forms of life. Later, the unmanned Viking missions (as well as the 1997 Pathfinder Lander) seemed to confirm this barren model. Complex, sometimes contradictory geologic theories to explain this desolate Mars environment have been proposed, based on a wide variety of observed surface phenomena and features. A new model that reconciles major puzzling contradictions among past models is now put forth, using new observations from MGS high-resolution images of Mars and a reevaluation of certain Viking era experiments. Small-scale surface features are identified which, it is proposed, are the direct product of wide spread ancient and recent bursts of subsurface liquid water. These water "stains" are shown to cluster (beyond statistical chance) in an unmistakable tidally-determined, bi-modal distribution on the planet: centered near the Tharsis and antipodal Arabia "bulges." A revaluation of Mars ancient history is therefore proposed, suggesting that Mars (well after solar system formation) was captured into synchronous orbital lock with a larger planetary companion ("Planet V"), accounting for the clustering of present day water bursts around the former beds of two bi-modally distributed "Mars ancient oceans" as a direct result. The current Tharsis and Arabia mantle uplifts are shown to be an inevitable additional fossil signature of such former tidal stresses, induced by a close gravitational relationship with Planet V. Other heretofore inexplicable Martian surface features are shown to be consistent with such a simple "tidal model": Valles Marineris (as an eroded ancient tidal bore, formed immediately post-capture); the presence of the extremely flat terrain covering the northern hemisphere (via deposited sediments from the once tidally supported oceans, when released); and the current trench or "moat" around the Tharsis bulge (from relaxation of Tharsis back into the mantle, after tidal lock was broken). The long-mysterious "Line of Dichotomy" is explained as a remnant of a "blast wave" of debris from this sudden severing of the former orbital lock relationship with Planet V, due to either a catastrophic collision or explosion. Chemical signatures of this extraordinary destruction event on Mars are shown to be consistent with the model; including the distribution of olivine preferentially below the line of dichotomy; the presence of primitive mantle and core materials such as iron and sulfur in unusual abundance on Mars surface; and the concentration of proposed "water stains" in areas bereft of olivine. Mars unusual magnetic field "striping" is now shown to be another unique southern hemisphere signature of this destruction event, caused by standing P and S waves reverberating through the planet's crust as a result of the massive simultaneous impacts from Planet V debris. Recently published research showing unprecedented outflow channels from the Tharsis and Arabia bulges are shown to be consistent with the sudden relaxation of the two tidal oceans, as is the sculpting of huge amounts of material by fluvial processes north of the Arabia bulge. Two possible mechanisms for the destruction of Planet V and the breaking of this tidal lock are outlined. Finally, a new timeline for Mars geologic evolution is proposed that is consistent with these observations, placing these events between capture ~500 MYA and the destruction of Planet V at 65 MYA.
If we found intelligent Martians on the surface of the planet tomorrow, how would that diminish the uniqueness and specialness of human life? Or the uniqueness and specialness of Martian life, for that matter?
+++ATH0
????????
That is essential for life as we know it.
It isn't in the atmosphere, and I'm not aware of us finding any nitrates in the soils or rocks, thus far.
Now I understand why editors don't write the stories around here as that was some of the worst English I've ever read.
Michael please to retake sophomore H.S. English, k, thx!
regardless of religion, lets say for a moment that you were an all powerful diety, would you seriously create an entire universe to support but ONE intelligent life form?
i sure as hell wouldn't, and i don't think anyone else imaginative enough to create something as simply beautiful as our planet would either...
ones creative urges would prevail, and other intelligent life forms would be created; simply for the hell of it if not for any other reasons...
If there was water, there could have been snow. If there was snow, there could have been snowmen. Hence there could have been life.
Steve Squires for President!
How about "Uncle" on Jackie Chan's cartoon series.
Agreed.
I also think that it's important not to patronize the ancient scholars who put Genesis together. Clearly the account has been compiled from several sources, a fact that the compilers, if not future generations, would be quite clear on. I also suspect they were also well aware that they were not writing a natural history text, although they probably attempted to be consistent with the known cosmology of their time.
The main point of the creation story, in particular the story of the fall is this:
To this, they answer the question with another question:
This way of answering is especially poignant if you imagine the compiler as a religious scholar or scribe, an educated sensitive person who would as part of his job think about things like the inevitability of death. What he is saying that knowledge and self awareness may be a blessing, but they are also a burden.
Taking Genesis as a text on natural history reduces a profound statement about the human condition to an obsolete and disproven speculation.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
maybe there is life under mars
One signature may be small magnetite crystals. One the controversies with the "fossils" in the martian meteorite was how to be sure they were really fossils. The argument pretty much devolved into two lines of reasoning when it was reduced to the simplest form. The objects pro) looked like fossils, but con) they were far, far smaller than expected from comparable earthly forms, but pro) contained magnetite (hematite) in a form that ONLY occurs in lifeforms on earth, but con) they came from Mars, which totals up to "no one has the vote." Interestingly, hematite was one of the attractions of the Opportunity landing site.
Today President Bush announced an emergency $5million to fund writers for employees at NASA upon hearing their speeches.
Seriously though, very cool. =) But my god people, get WRITERS!
Unfortunately for the incipient feeding frenzy, the mission scientists were emphatic that the evidence, while strongly suggesting that an aqueous environment was involved, was not sufficient to differentiate between a standing body of water and ground water (an aquifer) that percolated through the minerals in situ.
We may know better in a couple of weeks, since the "deposited in water" versus "affected by water" question is right at the top of the list for further investigation.
Trusted by cats.
Friday Feb. 27, 2004
:-/
We may have found water. I'm not sure if that's good or not. My GF wants to break up with me. She says I have my head in the clouds...that I'm too starry eyed. Kind of pisses me off. Sometimes I wonder if I really know how to love. Maybe the press conference next Tuesday will get me some hot bitches. You know how they go for physicists who just found water and shit.
Current Song: Styx - Come Sail Away
Current Emoticon:
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Some folks would find a way to explain away the finding of a segment of the prehistoric Martian subway system complete with gumball machines and Martian winos.
"Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."
I know this must be exciting for the scientific community, but it really doesnt change anything IMHO. Mars *might* have had water at one point? I could have told you that yesterday or 20 years ago. The evidence is not 100% conclusive, just one more piece of the puzzle. Wake me up when they find *actual water* (or ice)
I'm still amazed some corporate sponsor didn't get their name on one of those rovers. I'd think some water company would be all over that opportunity.
2*FeH + 6*S + 2*NH3 => 2*H2 + N2 + 2*FeS3H2
The chemical reaction don't use WATER H2O!!! it's AMONIACO, pufff!!!
open4free
...was when they showed that the erosion on the giant Krayt
skull could only have been caused by water, not by sand.
Something like 20 Mars rocks have been found on Earth. Most were on top of Antarctic ice where they are readily found. Mars rocks have a Martian atmospheric composition in their tiny air vesicles. It is thought a rock could make the journey from Mars to Earth at least every million years, so thousands of more may have arrived. Most would go into the ocean or be eroded on land.
So once life evolves somewhere in the solar system, it is likely to infect every other semi-hospitable place, including the wet moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
It may be likely that life evolved on Mars first because it was smaller and cooled down faster after creation. Then a meteor ejection would have infected earth fairly quickly.
Shrimp are like strawberries: the larger ones are tough, fiberous and bland. For me, good shrimp are no bigger than the size of your index finger, give or take. I guess the bigger == better pitch works well for the quick-service seafood crowd.
I've actually wondered this too. Imagine if Mars were in close orbit around Jupiter! The tidal forces of Jupiter would cause Mars's closest side to be pulled on harder than the far side, causing it to elongate slightly. As Mars rotates, the once far side of the planet comes around and gets tugged on, while the once near side relaxes back into shape. This stretching back and forth is exactly what happens to the moon Io, and is so vigorous that the moon has a molten core and tremendous volcanic activity. Of course being that close to Jupiter places Io right in the most dangerous radiation zones around Jupiter, so there could probably have never been life on that moon.
What was that Rabbit thing. opportunity photographed on Mars and why did Nasa destroy it ??
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Job 26:7 -- "He suspends the earth over nothing"; "God hangeth the earth upon nothing."
.
BIBLICAL REFERENCE DISCLAIMER: Blahblahblah, I'm not a creationist, I've read lots of translations of the Bible AND english translations of Kuran and Bhagavad-Gita and I think that religion should be a personal thing and I don't think that the earth was made in 6 days and I don't use religion or god or satan as mythological boogiemen or scapegoats for my problems blah blah blah . .
Anyhoo. Just thought I'd point out that (in support of your point) since so much of belief is dependent on personal interpretation of texts, it's not impossible by any means to devise an interpretation of the bible that requires direct contradiction of laws of science or known reality.
They have found extremely compelling evidence that there was/is water on mars. Essentially the only questions that remain are, "How much water?" and "How long was there water?". True, the evidence isn't 100% conclusive, but it is definitely within a range that several scientists are willing to place their reputations in jeopardy to announce.
To know is to have knowledge....to understand is to be enlightened.
(j/k)
Omnes arx vestrum sunt adiuncta nobis.
(assuming you're talking about evolution vs. creation)
Creationists who think rationally would understand that human life DID come from one place (Garden of Eden, or more recently Noah's Ark). It's just a matter of how people came into existence in the first place that's disputed. (I'm not trying to create a flamefest thread, so please don't)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
OK, So they found evidence that there was water on Mars. Big Deal. The place is a barren dirt ball now and if any fool thinks we should send men there than they have their head stuck way up you know where.
And don't give me a story about "well we are searching to see if there is other life in the universe". With the billions of other stars out there, if you don't bet there is SOME form of life off the planet earth, then you need to spend your days watching Celebrity Poker on TV.
Between the idiot Democrats and the moron Republicans, and all the religous fanatics in the world and Hollywood sleezeballs at the Oscars, we have enough problems on the planet earth to worry about.
I for one would like some fish to eat that does not have mercury in it, some fruits and vegetables without pesticides on them, a form of transportation that does not pollute or require us to rely on holes drilled in the ground of some dirtbag desert in a faraway country inhabitated by wackos who hate us, and at least ONE TV channel that is not run by some giant media company that distorts the truth for it's own profits.
We have screwed up a beautiful world here, let's not waste our time traveling to a dirt ball world to screw it up too...
So, when can we expect to see purified (via double reverse osmosis!!) bottled Martian water on our grocery store shelves?
sudo eat my shorts
I could imagine something like this (were there life instead of water):
Hello there, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome. So... let's start with this press conference...
Once upon a time there was this big... gigantically big black void, called the galaxy. In this big.... unbelievably big void there were small lightbulbs. Tiny... real tiny lightbulbs compared to the gigantic big void, called suns. Next to these small lightbulbs were even smaller drops of dirt. Tiny... small drops of dirt, called planets.
And yesterday, on one of those tiny tiny tiny drops of dirt, we found an even tinier thingie... a tiny tiny animal. Just like those you see in the zoo. Those nice animals with their furry coat, that make you laugh, ha ha.
But this tiny tiny animal is actually about as big as your house... multiplied by two-hundred. And now that animal can come and eat you alive ! It has huge teeth and great claws, and will happily eat you!
Now... that was the story of our discovery. Good night everybody and sleep tight !
I guess they shouldn't make that a horror-writer.
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
Yeah, that's kinda the same thing as discriminating against racists. What was the question again?
you're some goddam piss-swilling ass-humping jizz-chugging faggot, ain't ya, you dumb piece of fuckin shit!
I think what you really mean is Halliburton will be shaking NASA down for every penny they can get their greedy fat hands on. Tax payers money of course.
There is strong evidence that Europa currently has FLOWING water beneath the ice surface. IMHO Mars is a dead planet. We may find some evidence that life once existed in some form on Mars - BORING!!!
On Europa, there exists the possibility of finding life - perhaps even a whole ecosystem.
Mars exploration seems to be a huge waste of time. It is just easier to get funding for Mars missions since there will be some payoff within six months as opposed to waiting a decade for a probe to reach Jupiter (The current administration will benefit from positive press).
Not everyone hold much faith in the post-apostolic era.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
Perhaps the water has not been lost at all. Perhaps it was always underground, in a vast network of huge caves, created by early volcanic activity. Couldn't there have been oceans underground? (The water would still occaisionally be sent to the surface during volcanic eruptions... now THAT would be a geyser to see!) Damn... now we're gonna have to send spelunkers to Mars!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
My friend drew (look him up on the boards at holophrastic.com) once wrote a beautiful essay on how the speed of light can be used to prove the Bible wrong on its creationist timeline. (He concluded by telling all the fundies to give us their toasters and go back to the stone age. It was coarse but intellectual. I love drew.)
Anyway, since there is a big section of Christians who already believe that Genesis is not exactly literal and/or chronological, they could easily fit life on Mars into the story of creation, somehow. The real question is, which of them will WANT to, and which will just add to their belief that science is evil.
Personally, I'd like to see the whole thing blow up. Pat Robertson lives in my neck of the woods, and he is a constant source of entertainment. I would love to tune in one day to something like, "Today on the 700 Club - Life on Mars: Scientific Proof of God's Love, or Evidence of the Location of Hell?" (Mars being the planet of War, ruled by Aries the Ram, a Fire Sign, etc. and so on...)
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
If you mod this down with YOUR limited mod points, I, the troll, have WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!11!!1!1ONEONE!!!11!!ONE
I am really tired of people "looking for life on (insert planet/moon name here)." If it can't jump up and say "Howdy!", prance around in a skipmy outfit like that Vulcan chick from Enterprise, or shoot a ray-gun with a tentacled appendage, who cares! Evolution is king, baby: let's not coddle those weak little Martian organisms. If they can't handle the competetion with some strapping Earth-born organisms...fuck em!
Think about how long it takes to terraform a planet. Shouldn't we have started by now? It's past time to seed some plants to eat the carbon dioxide, release some oxygen and let them begin digging the water out of the earth and releasing it into the atmosphere.
Speaking of plants, I wonder if tossing cactus/sensamilla seeds out of a baloon bourne lander would be a good way of finding water. Those plants are pretty hardy, and anywhere the plants start to grow would potentially have water sources near the surface. I bet I could devise some wicked experiments to carry out on Mars with plants that were modified genetically to withstand the harsher conditions.
If only the scientific community would grow some gonads we would have a great decade of science and experimentiton ahead of us.
What is the matter officer? I have obeyed all of your silly Earth laws!
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
the SPICE!
odd rock formation
Richard C Hoagland (remember him? No? Remember the "face"?) has an interesting theory, called the Mars Tidal Model.
c J: www.enterprisemission.com/files/TIDES.pdf+&hl=en&l r=lang_en&ie=UTF-8
It's a long but awfully interesting read. You can find it here, though it is in PDF:
http://www.lunaranomalies.com/images/TIDES.pdf
Google claims you can view it in HTML, however this isn't working for me:
http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:aM0G3cEtDy
Richard's main site is http://www.enterprisemission.com/ . Some of his stuff is waay out there, but some of it is truly interesting and possible.
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
Maybe it was part of what Chicxulub kicked up. Could've ended up on Mars, I suppose.
This is like finding a pair of Nikes in the road and determining that a Nike factory existed there at one point.
Note the line of dichotomy. On one side there is ample evidence of a long history of impacts of all sizes. The other side of the line is several kilometers lower in altitude, and relativly unscarred.
The current thinking that big craters = old craters and small = new needs to be re-examined. Even if the theory were to hold mostly true, we shouldn't arrange the cronology of craters on their size alone.
In order to support oceans, it is reasonable to assume that Mars must have also had the requisite atomsphere and magnetic/gravitational forces support it. The lack atmosphere and oceans can be explained by a near miss, but the loss of the magnetic and gravtiational energies can only be suffeciently explained by a very large impact.
The unscarred side of Mars would seem to indicate that this took place fairly recently, and I would say more recently than the advent of simple life here. I geuss we don't hae any definiteve way of dating the event yet, but my hunch is that it was more recent than we'd expect, even within the last 100 million years.
I need to burn some Karma
exobiology experiments
Here at JPL, it is an interesting mixed feeling the scientists are having.
On one hand, we've acomplished almost all of the stated goals of the mission. I saw the Long Term Planning briefing and the chart had item after item checked off... only the endurance section was left unfinished.
Think about it. We landed not one but two fully functional rovers on mars, with the most comprehensive science package ever sent to another world. We have spectrometers of unmatched precision, we have the ability to examine betneath the surface of rocks and outcrops, and we've taken the most detailed pictures of mars ever recorded.
We've explored rocks and craters and soils, and that was just the first few sols! All of this is an incredible accomplishment, especially considering the track record. The engineering part alone is enough to consider the mission a success.
But since last week it's been clear to us here that we've found what we were looking for: evidence that clinches the case that Mars was once wet. That's when I say, "Mission Accomplished". That's more than many hoped to find, though we sent the mission as it is primarly because we expected this was *possible* if even somewhat unlikely.
But we're not done yet. In fact if anything we have more questions to answer now. Mars has never failed to throw curve balls at us. There's all kinds of minerology that we're not sure about. We don't even know yet if this was just ground water, or actually lakes or oceans. But as long as these rovers still have life in them we'll continue to advance our scientific understanding of the planet.
Regardless of what anyone thinks about the specifics of the President's plan, it's clear that public support for the program is very high now, considering that we have learned from our mistakes and have accomplished more than we could have hoped. I'm very optimistic that future missions will unravel many of the new mysteries we have discovered. It is truely, as they said on the briefing, a great time to be alive. The field of astrobiology is finally beginning to be taken seriously by the scientific community and even the public at large. We have seen that Faster, Better, Cheaper *can* work - as long as we don't try to bite off more than we can chew.
I don't know when we'll actually have humans on Mars, but I'm hopeful that there's a real chance that in my lifetime (and maybe even my parents') we will find evidence of previous life on Mars. It'd be nice to know we're not quite alone.
My congradulations to the science team for an incredible discovery, and I extend that to the taxpayers that graciously fund us, and to our supporters in all nations of this earth. We could not have made these discoveries without our valued partners in Europe, and they deserve to share much of the credit.
I know some of you on slashdot ask why fund the space program. I hope that this makes it clear that you are getting your money's worth. Thanks for all of your support!
Cheers,
Justin Wick
Science Activity Planner Developer
Mars Exploration Rovers
"In fact it's perfectly safe," said one of the officials,
"it's built so that even if the ship does break up, the
storage holds cannot possibly be breached."
Young Zaphod Plays It Safe
Peace and love, y'all
... what are the chances that there were more complex life-forms? fish like creatures? Is there any evidence that if anything existed it would have been limited to simple single-celular organisms?
"In fact it's perfectly safe," said one of the officials,
"it's built so that even if the ship does break up, the
storage holds cannot possibly be breached."
Young Zaphod Plays It Safe
Peace and love, y'all
The recently just-released image log just prior to encounter shows how the Global War on Terror truly knows know bounds. Don't worry, that debris originated on Earth, though its extinction now seems complete. Th-th-that's all, folks!
--
make install -not war
There are certain realities which are going to become painfully self-evident over the next few years. .
1. We Are Not Alone, (and that aliens are not good guys. Not by a long shot.)
2. Comet disaster is something we are going to have to start living with fairly soon.
These realities, which I have talked about at some length in the past, are well understood by Upper Management, and they seem to feel that maintaining careful control of how public awareness develops is vital to their 'plans'. (Plans, which, btw, are doomed to fail simply because that's one of the most reliable features of the dementia known as, 'Megalomania'.)
Anyway. . , I hope everybody continues enjoying the show. NASA puts on a pretty good one, even if their whole operation is littered with idiocy and decay. --Again, the features of Megalomania loud and clear. Bush is a coke-head and Hitler attacked Russia in the frickin' winter time! This does not mean, unfortunately, that masses and masses of damage cannot still be the result.
-FL
Mars is already contaminated with Earth Bacteria. There has been significant exchange of materials between Earth and Mars as a result of meteor impacts splashing small bits of each planet into space. It has been demonstrated that lots of bacterial species can cope with the tremendous forces and pressures that these bits would be exposed to, so they could (and almost certainly do) easily survive an interplanetary trip. Discovery of DNA-based life on mars, or anywhere else in the solar system, would not answer the question about whether or not we are alone in the Universe, as all that life is very likely to have come from the same single source.
I said most religions, and you brought St. Augustine in.
I'm a Christian as well, but "most religions" does not equal Christianity.
The subterranean catacombs of Mars, teeming with vampires, are no place for water, either dripping on tomb soil beds or flowing near ancient collections of art & literature. Overhead water bodies on the surface would obstruct travel, as vampires cannot cross water. Water does nothing for vampires, except make blood drinkable, but they're way beyond getting their food "on the hoof" like we usually hear about on Earth. Water, the key to life, is abhorrent to the biters. They've gotten their water problem under control in their Martian vampire paradise. And now we're going to reignite the old war that ended in effective stalemate, by bringing it on in their own turf, without getting our SOLASER defense shield up. Get behind our only hope now, and turn the sunlight on this scourge here at home, and wherever our age-old enemies make their lair!
--
make install -not war
I found water in my bathtub this morning. You don't see my holding a press conference.
That's really not that crazy. Terraforming is an important goal of astrobiology. There are significant risks, and several ethical questions involved, but it's not unrealiseable. Within 100 years we could warm Mars to almost the same temperature of Earth - the seas that we think existed would flow again, and *cross fingers* we'd see a whole new biology erupt before our eyes. It's really very exciting. Check out Nasa's Astrobiology website for more details at: http://astrobiology.arc.nasa.gov/ I took a course on it at my university - I'd assume other colleges offer similar courses. They come highly recommended. I have a real appreciation for the work the biologists do in determining the origins of life, both here and *out there*. Neat stuff...
In your example, the literal interpretation of the Bible is wrong. I believe that religious beliefs must stick with metaphysical claims, or informal perspectives on the world around us. Otherwise, they are treading on territory best-suited for science and are likely to be proven incorrect over time. However, many people feel that metaphysical claims are worthless and "informal perspectives" should be made formal or thrown out. But if my point about a complete materialistic explanation always falling short is true, then MP claims and informal statements will always have a place. Then religion becomes defined as a way for people to arrive to some kind of overhead view of our undefinable world. Taoist philosophy does this very well, in my opinion.
Are such religious beliefs as valid as information gathered through scientific inquiry? What if future scientific theories contradict some of these beliefs ? Which ones do we throw out if they're equally valid ? Or are these religious beliefs only ok until they contradict science and then they automatically get thrown out in favour of science ?
They're valid for the aims they are best-suited for. Science is king when it comes to making precise predictions about the world and getting the best materialistic simplification possible for now. Religion would be used to see everything together informally to deal with what can't be made precise. If religion is used to do science's job, it is likely to make mistakes which need to be thrown out when science discovers them.
Whew... I hope my responses answered your excellent/insightful questions.
Happy people make bad consumers.
And I thought Slashbots were paranoid! This motherfucker's bones are made of tin-foil!
Everyone knows the REAL reason Jesus came to earth to die for our sins: SO THAT PRIESTS COULD MOLEST CHILDREN! I mean seriously, what better position could you be in to molest children other than a priest? And without Jesus, we would have no priests. Therefore, yUO = t3h sUxK!
do you actually think the one controller who noticed this "possible life form" was not stomped out by the pro right christian fundamentalist group that controls the president?
Pardon my ignorance, but how exactly to you calculate the probability of abiogenetic reactions when you don't even know what they are let alone fully understand their reaction rates?! No one knows exactly HOW precursor molecules reacted to form RNA (then DNA) so placing probabilities on their rates of formation in a prebiotic Earth is patently absurd. More likely it is that we simply haven't figured out what make these reactions stable and probable. There is progress here though, on Jan. 9th. of this year researchers at the University of Florida foud that Borate minerals completely stabilize the reaction necessary to form simple sugars like ribose(as in RIBOnucleic acid). There is no logical reason I can think of that will prevent scientists from 'cracking this nut' when it comes to figuring out how abiotic synthesis happened, and when it is figured out it will be one of the most triumphant moments of science in history.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
Moderated off topic. Yeah okay. I sure hope a meta moderator catches that one.
Read carefully. Levin also believes that the Labeled Release experiment of the Viking landers proved the existence of life on Mars. The article says he is a "former Viking Mars lander investigator".
There is a reason that high profile scientists have not reiterated Levin's apparently blindingly obvious conclusions.
Adam
Think about it. There has to be some reason why Mars once was covered in water and now isn't. Could the same thing happen to our own planet?
http://mediagoblin.org/
"Informative"? Yeesh.
FeH doesn't mean anything, because iron has valence 2 or 3 in stable compounds.
FeS3H2 doesn't spell anything but ignorance.
Iron sulfate hydrate is FeSO4.n(H2O). "Hydrate" means it has water bound up with it.
Congratulations on being able to count atoms on both sides -- and even multiply small integers, wow! -- but there's a lot more to chemistry than that.
That's why the latin is more elucidating. You're fallacy is falling into a linguistic trap. Cogito ergo sum. Think do I, thus am I. The first premise is think, the rest follows. Counter arguments that you can't think that you've thought until you have thought are Zeno-eqsue (google Zeno frog well) or that you perhaps only think you are thinking (google Chuang Tzu dream butterfly) are self-evidently moot. Dang, the frog ate the butterfly again. I hate it when that happens.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." -- Philip K. Dick
But as Thomas Paine said, "To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead."
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
As Richard Feynman used to say, "Scientists are no better outside their area of specialization than amateurs."
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
I have uncovered their plan!!
1. Burn up re-entry unsafe RTG's over Canada
2. ???
3. Profit!
Something off of the internet... "Genesis chapter one is clearly false and here's proof" 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now it is certaintly true the before life first evolved, heaven or "space" and the planet earth had to first be created, and there is no scientific evidence disputing this. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. Of course primitive single cell life did evolve at some point. Early life would not have had any way to detect robust forms and would have found their surrounding a void. Yes, life most likely would have come about on the surface of the planet, thus "the deep" would have been devoid of it, and, as is still the case today, dark. And, if we interpret the "Spirit of God" as being life itself, it most certaintly moved, whether through primitive cellular locomotion, or only via tidal currents, primarily over the face of the waters, where science does hold life began. 3 And God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. Sure, at some point primitive single cell life forms would have developed the chemical ability to rudimentally detect light. 4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. And sure, when life "saw", it only makes sense that this "God", whatever that is, was able to see also. And of couse, being able to detect which direction light was in would have aided the survival of life and this, just to give the text the benifit of the doubt, was good. And yes, life would have been able to detect and act on the fact that some areas were light and some areas were dark. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. Primitive life would have experienced the motion of the earth relative to the sun which brings about day and night. Science has no evidence that there was a time in earths history when it did not move thusly. This time period of single celled life eventually able to detect certain wavelengths of the UV spectrum did indeed constitute a major epoch in life's development. 6 And God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." It is not disputed by reputable scientists that there was a time at which the atmosphere changed from its original clouded greehouse state. The was indeed accomplished through photosynthesis which, simply put, does separate one molecule of water into hydrogen and oxygen with the help of light from the sky. But this passage is hardly clear. 7 And God made the firmament and separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. This separation of water would have eliminated the greenhouse and revealed the sky and made clouds less ubiquitous. Sure the atmosphere changed a great deal, but this sentence is hardly clear in its meaning which is the first strike against this obvious fable. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. The change of the atmosphere and the subsequent changes in the way life survived also constituted a major epoch in the story of life. 9 And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. Sure, the continents as we know them (in differing locations) did appear after the change of the atmosphere, since the end of greenhouse conditions allowed for the icecaps to form. But are we supposed to believe there was no dry land at all before this time? What fools do the authors take us to be? 11 And God said, "Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth." And it was so. Sure, primitive lichens and mosses did sprea
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." -- Philip K. Dick
Something off of the internet (fixed formatting, sorry):
"Genesis chapter one is clearly false and here's proof"
The creation myth presented in the first Chapter of Genesis is clearly false, and here's proof.
Genesis 1
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Now it is certaintly true the before life first evolved, heaven or "space" and the planet earth had to first be created, and there is no scientific evidence disputing this.
2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.
Of course primitive single cell life did evolve at some point. Early life would not have had any way to detect robust forms and would have found their surrounding a void. Yes, life most likely would have come about on the surface of the planet, thus "the deep" would have been devoid of it, and, as is still the case today, dark. And, if we interpret the "Spirit of God" as being life itself, it most certaintly moved, whether through primitive cellular locomotion, or only via tidal currents, primarily over the face of the waters, where science does hold life began.
3 And God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.
Sure, at some point primitive single cell life forms would have developed the chemical ability to rudimentally detect light.
4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.
And sure, when life "saw", it only makes sense that this "God", whatever that is, was able to see also. And of couse, being able to detect which direction light was in would have aided the survival of life and this, just to give the text the benifit of the doubt, was good. And yes, life would have been able to detect and act on the fact that some areas were light and some areas were dark.
5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.
Primitive life would have experienced the motion of the earth relative to the sun which brings about day and night. Science has no evidence that there was a time in earths history when it did not move thusly. This time period of single celled life eventually able to detect certain wavelengths of the UV spectrum did indeed constitute a major epoch in life's development.
6 And God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters."
It is not disputed by reputable scientists that there was a time at which the atmosphere changed from its original clouded greehouse state. The was indeed accomplished through photosynthesis which, simply put, does separate one molecule of water into hydrogen and oxygen with the help of light from the sky. But this passage is hardly clear.
7 And God made the firmament and separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so.
This separation of water would have eliminated the greenhouse and revealed the sky and made clouds less ubiquitous. Sure the atmosphere changed a great deal, but this sentence is hardly clear in its meaning which is the first strike against this obvious fable.
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.
The change of the atmosphere and the subsequent changes in the way life survived also constituted a major epoch in the story of life.
9 And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so.
10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
Sure, the continents as we know them (in differing locations) did appear after the change of the atmosphere, since the end of greenhouse conditions allowed for the icecaps to form. But are we supposed to believe there was no dry land at all before this t
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." -- Philip K. Dick
I agree with your main argument. Assigning probabilities to events which we don't fully understand is somewhat rediculous. Any sort of argument that uses a figure like "10^26, yada yada" is interesting because its the best science with the knowledge we have right now. But trying to figure out how life began/was created is so difficult, we don't even know what we don't know. Any statistics we come up with are derived from a hopelessly incomplete picture.
Religion is the "science" of things that we don't even know that we don't know...
>> "Hell, there are cases where fossils are known from igneous rocks (e.g., trees encased in lava flows) and plenty of metamorphic rocks too."
Excerpt from: http://paleozoo.geozoo.org/world/na/us/wa/2.php
Blue Rhinos & Evergreen Elephants
Four people from Seattle were searching for petrified wood in Blue Lake basin in 1935. Suddenly, they spotted a cavity in a rock wall. Crawling inside, they found several small bones lying around.
Scientists later determined that the bones belonged to some kind of rhinoceros. Only one complete tooth was found. The worn tooth indicated the animal was probably old when it died.
To get a better idea of what the animal looked like, they decided to make a mold of the cast. They had to carry water up a 200-foot cliff, then crawl into the dark, dusty mold.
The mold indicates the animal was probably at least 50 inches tall at the shoulder and about eight feet long from snout to tail. It probably weighed about a ton. It was lying on its back with its legs sticking up and appears to have been bloated.
Two known prehistoric North American rhinoceroses fit the descriptionDiceratherium and Subhyracodon. But Subhyracodon lived at least 12 million years before lava began to form the Columbia Plateau. So, for the time being, the Blue Lake Rhino is considered a Diceratherium, a rhino that sported two horns growing side-by-side on its snout.
The notion that Mars has been contaminated via meteor impacts is still a theory. It's a plausible theory, but just a theory. It's, in fact, a theory we could try to confirm by examining what kind of life, if any, exists on Mars. That in itself would be a spectacular scientific result.
But once Mars has been contaminated by bacteria from earth, that opportunity is gone because we won't be able to distinguish bacteria we brought from bacteria that traveled via meteor impact.
We don't need to contaminate Mars with the Earth Bacteria...
Why? You can distinguish between earth and native Martian bacteria via testing. Not that our bacteria would get very far there, and we would also take some percautions I'm sure (like no spitting, for one).
The argument not to go to Mars because of contaimination concerns is one of the weaker ones.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Which is exactly why we should send a manned mission with a microbiologist or two who can spend a year and a half looking at various types of sediment for hundreds of kilometers.
For that amount of money and effort, we can send literally hundreds of unmanned probes. The overall risk with the unmanned probes is going to be much lower and the overall scientific benefit is much greater.
Manned travel to Mars just makes no financial or scientific sense at this point.
NASA has never lost a human in space, so sending them on a 1.5 year mission is actually safer than throwing them to orbit.
Why would "losing a human in space" be a big concern in deciding whether to send a manned mission to Mars? That wasn't a concern during any of the other great explorations of humankind. But the sad fact is that safety just isn't what makes manned interplanetary missions disproportionately expensive, it's the weight and basic requirements of human beings in general that do.
I suppose "cogito ergo sum" is actually a philosophical appeal to empiricism, since, to be meaningful, the logical assumption that "thinking implies existence" must be empirically self-evident.
i.e. sensing anything is evidence of existence; and reflecting upon that sensation allows us to empirically "prove" our own existence (even if only to ourselves).An interesting sig, though I don't know what the language-game is. It seems to depend upon your definition of "thing" and beg the question of defining a variable encompassing both "thing" and "empty".
This reminds me of another potentially confusing quote: "Nothing is too good for you... and that is exactly what you'll get." In this case, the differing definitions of the word "nothing" must be considered.
Ho hum... after re-reading this post, it seems rather arbitrary and silly, but seeing as I've already written it and I'm sleepy... bah.
The real answers can be found here. David Icke knows the TRUTH. It's the lizards from outer space. And the British Royal Family. And the Freemasons. And the Devil Worshippers. And he doesn't take his pills.
Stick Men
OK its a wild suggestion but perhaps the 'beads' are in fact small stromatolites. Hmm. Some of the beads are split so it shouldn't be too hard to get a very good close up image to see if this is the case, stromatolites have very distinct internal structures.
Bitter and proud of it.
Earth or Mars?
Which do you want to nuke ?
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
It's the NASA's disinformation, xDDDDD.
Even if the evidence was declared as "conclusive", we still wouldn't get our giant shrimp from Long John Silver b/c it didn't meet the deadline. What a rip.
[/lucio]
What is the point of proclaiming something diminished which can't be measured? For that matter, how can you even do it?
::shakes head::
It strikes me that this is somewhat similar to the argument that allowing gay marriage somehow diminishes the sanctity of marriage.
In what units does one measure sanctity?
+++ATH0
... religious wars are something specific to just us humans. Maybe they'll think fighting over how tall Jesus was would be silly. Imagine that.
+++ATH0
Erm, no - Adolf attacked Russia in early July.
'Erm', yourself, fool. I know when the attack was launched, thank you very much! And it was a moronic battle decision. The Nazi soldiers didn't have the proper supplies or plans or anything to mount an attack on Russia. They didn't even have cold weather clothing prepared in stand-by. Winter generally follows summer, and only a chowder-head like Hitler is full of wishful thinking enough to not realize that to fight Russia is to fight Russia in the snow. Period. Just look at the results of the battle.
And I'm sorry, but I didn't realize we were supposed to be working with first names when it came to, 'Adolf'. Are you one of those sick fucks, or just a jack-ass?
-FL
Hubble needs about $100 million for a single shuttle launch. $200 million in equipment has already been constructed and is only waiting in a warehouse for a mission.
If the shuttle cost $100M per launch there would be no need for alternative boosters for the next 30 years. $100M for 55000lbs of payload to LEO is super cheap. I have never seen that low number for even crack pipe estimates of the 1980's. A Delta 2 costs in the high 80's and it only lifts 3000lbs to LEO. But the shuttle really costs over $500M per launch, more if you consider the depreciation of NASA facilities and the loss of 2 orbiters. It may be closer to $700M. Then figure in the cost of new Hubble instruments and gyros and other electronics. My number of $1G is pretty close.
Hubble is amazing. You don't need to convince me. I would happily vote to abandon IIS now and fix Hubble. I don't see that happening because the US made commitments. Cancellation of IIS would wipe out the manned programs for Russia, Europe, Japan.
an ill wind that blows no good