Slashdot Mirror
Martian Sea Discovered
mpesce writes "New Scientist is reporting that a large sea of frozen ice (between 800 and 900 km in size and 45 m deep) has been discovered by the ESA's Mars Express Probe. Here's the kicker: the sea of block ice is only five degrees away from the Martian equator. New Scientist also links to a PDF of a paper to be presented next month about the finding." Update: 02/21 15:30 GMT by T : Note: that's 45 meters deep, not 45 kilometers deep.
A large sea of frozen ice??
:)
As opposed to the other kinds of ice, like liquid ice or gaseous ice?
Here's your sign...
Awesome, though. I can't wait for us to terraform Mars, and start our new civilization there.
And eventually ruin that planet as well.
Check out the best P2P sharing website: MEDIACHEST.COM
Not like the kind we get here, then.
That's 45 meters deep, not kilometers.
That's 800km by 900km (i.e. 800km wide and 900km long). It isn't between 800km and 900km!
they have not detected any form of frozen sea, they have merely found some peculiar formations that they hyopthesise may be blocks of ice covered in volcanic ash (which has prevented it subliming into the atmosphere). Another hypothesis is that these formations may have been caused by lava flows.
SURELY NOT!!!!!
Woot!
err maybe not, still not enough information but I tell ya all those stories I read growing up seem a little closer now - Edgar Rice Burroughs maybe was a little off in his vision of the planet - but Kim Stanley Robinson or Aurthor C. Clarkes visions may be in reach now. With water on the planet , and it being accessible to us gives any future mission to mars a valuable resource.
I'm 'pumped' so to speak.
The rock, the vulture, and the chain
"(between 800 and 900 km in size and 45 km deep) "
;)
:)
According to TFA the depth is 45 METERS deep, not 45 KILOMETERS.
There is quite a difference between the two...
Will they find any frozen martians within ? hairy ones at that ?
"Sweet llamas of the Bahamas !"
I didn't think so either...
The team of researchers, led by John Murray at the Open University, UK, estimates the submerged ice sea is about 800 by 900 kilometres in size and averages 45 metres deep.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
... is a bewildered and gasping Arnold Schwarzenegger waiting for the nuclear heating coils to kick in.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
In other news, Michelle Kwan has announced she will be training for the 2006 Olympics on a secret "remote" location, devoid of paparazzi.
Insiders say she also aquired a new sponser, an undisclosed candy bar manufacturer..
...if we melt the water. And my tounge in cheek Mars Hydro website may well fortell a commercial future too? :-)
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
The
when can WE swim in it?
Time for some extraterrestrial Pond Hockey!!!
I LIKE TOAST!!!
Here's the title of the article:
./ posting:
...that a large sea of frozen ice (between 800 and 900 km in size and 45 km deep) has been discovered...
./ poster even RTFA?
'Pack ice' suggests frozen sea on Mars
Here's the summary of the
Do
less drugs for you, my friend...
Now astronauts (or kosmonauts or taikonauts or whatever gets first over there) don't have to take ice with them if they want to have a whisky on the rocks.
Hmm... maybe I could start a first "bar galactica" and make tons by selling spacetourists stiff drinks at high rates.
"Joe, one lump of frozen ice in my drink if you please!"
He's just colonizing in the name of the Drexciyan Wavejumpers.
RIP James.
-mkb
Well, you see, the whole attraction of mars is that people can go there, terraform it, and then greenhouse the shit out of it and say "Well it was a barren waste land anyways".
Mars will be the Las Vegas of environmental concerns!
I could just picture first detailed images of the sea coming back with a frozen martian with a slightly suprised look on its face frozen under the ice. :-)
Warning, comments may not have been passed by the sanity department of my brain.
It wasn't too long ago that the guys from the Science magazine compiled their list of the 10 most important breakthroughs of 2004. Ranked 1 were the Mars rovers. For all I remember, Mars Express delivered probably at least as many new insights, if not more, but it was notably missing in that list. Why's that? Just because it doesn't have wheels to drive around, or is it the lack of an american flag on its side? Or what exactly is it that puts the rovers into a league of their own?
Arnie> "Staart zer reaaktur! Iit maakes aair!!" /Arnie>
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
Seen the movie Total Recall?
looks like someone needs to activate the martian oxygen maker thing.
Arnie Quotes
"Consider that a divorce!"
"Get your ass to Mars...get your ass to Mars..."
"MY NAME IS NOT QUAID!"
"If I'm not me, who da hell am I?"
"That's the best mindf___ yet."
The article mentioned frozen ice at the polar caps. Sorry to sound daft, but doesn't that mean water has already been discovered on Mars? Or is it another frozen substaince?
Sustainability and energy independence essay
From some random site, the volume of Earth's oceans is 1.3*10^9 km^3. That's roughly 40,000 times as much water as what was just found on Mars. Inferring the existance of even more water on Mars, and taking into account the fact that Mars is smaller than Earth (surface area of Earth is ~ 6.65 times that of Mars?), you might say the avearge ocean depth of Earth is at most 6000 times greater than that of Mars. Not too friggin bad, let's terraform this sucker.
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
It's amazing to me that the submitter could make three errors in the first half of the first sentence of his submission.
It's not between 800 and 900 in size, it is 800 by 900.
It's 45 meters deep, not km.
Frozen ice? Well, duh.
it's powers of observation and recounting as keen as these that make eye witness testimony so compelling.
"No one would have believed in the first years of the 21st century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than Martians' and yet as mortal as his own; that as Martians busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a Martian with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency Martians went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of Martian danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most Martian men fancied there might be other men upon planet three , perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this mars with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And to mars in the 21st century came the great disillusionment."
and what if C-A-T really spelled dog
There's no place like ~/
I wonder if Martians can ice skate? If so, perhaps we could import them here and have a hockey season. Imagine ESPN's ratings for the Mars Cup!
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Your proposal is feasible. Un polo con piano weighs a good bit less than the rovers and with HtwoO already there coul dbe delivered with at least a years supply of scratch. Bingo, a whole year of keytones.
Moron!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So in essence, are you telling me that we may or may not have a sea of "frozen" ice, which is definitely not between 800 and 900 km, and is definitely not 45km deep?
I suggest a new story headline: "There might be some stuff on Mars"
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Good point. I love how the slightest hint of water - which could mean something else - is taken as iron clad proof that there is water on Mars. Remember when sediment was found at the bottom of basins on Mars, and they thought that was their proof? Frankly, I'm waiting for them to bring back a pitcher (of water).
The frosen sea should be 45 meters deep. A 45 km deep sea would be a huge amount of water, answering the questions: where is all the marian water?
Maybe computers will never become as intelligent as humans. For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-89]
Start the reactor...
Simple request, anyone got at mirror for the now dead link
to the PDF ?
http://209.235.176.54/1741.pdf
Its temp webspace for www.foxcheck.org. Have fun. And we want to live in peace with our /. overlords!
Who came with that stupid idea to name a planet after candy bar, anyway? That's outrageous!
Since when were km french? You must mean your TheRestOfTheWorld-to-BackwardsAmericanWay cheat sheet. Notice how all science stuff is in metric, it makes more sense (Powers of ten).
Let me get this straight...
You're memermised by a spacecraft that has allowed "scientists" to speculate with little or no facts?
I may be an older guy, but back in my day, we would call what these "scientists" are doing as "talking out of your ass".
Time to get a reality check. Not only does the original poster of the article exaggerate what scientists are guessing about by a factor of 100, but they don't have any proof, and the surrounding facts suggest that the guesses are unrealistic.
And based on that, you want us to marvel at the ESA?
I mean, just checking.
Considering that Mars has somewhat Earth like range of temperatures, how is it possible for ice to form at sea-level just 5 degrees north of the Equator? I am not saying that its not a possibility but the only way it is possible is via the Snowball Effect, as it happened on Earth 600 million years ago. But how can that be possible either if Mars is not that hot? Any solutions from fellow /.'ers?
So one imperial meter is the same as a metric millimeter. I gotta remember that...
The "Fear and Loathin in Las Vegas" book that Hunter S. Thompson wrote, which inspired this subject, apparently committed suicide yesterday with a gun shot to the head. Just an FYI. So long Hunter.
We are one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Back to you with the weather, Bob!
It's sad that my first reaction was to call "Bullcrap!" on what might very well be good research from scientists who probably were very conscientious in presenting their data and the different conclusions that the media downplayed for the sake of a "life on Mars" story. And it's not just the National Enquirer crowd but also the shameless lobbying of JPL and NASA for a Mars mission with their news conference presentation of mineral formations that could be of bacterial origin (or not..) that is making it really hard to figure out what is FUD and what is good science...
I want to believe but I also want to know that it is not more Martian snake oil...
If we could terraform Mars, do you really think it would be hospitable? There's more to Earth than water and oxygen that makes it possible for life to live here. The moon, for instance, is just in the right position to affect our tides so they aren't out of control. And the magnetic field that helps move that nasty radiation around us... I wonder what it would mean for Earth if we terraformed Mars, changed it's magnetic field. It might even effect life here. I say we leave Mars alone before we kill ourselves.
- Tylo
Here's the kicker: the sea of block ice is only five degrees away from the Martian equator.
I have to admit I don't know a lot about this yet... but why is it such a "kicker" that the ice is so near the equator?
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
Since the metric shitload hit the fan...
Mars isn't flat, and the area of the sea surely isn't square, but a very rough estimation of the volume would be: 800,000 meters * 900,000 meters * 45 meters = 32,400,000,000,000 cubic meters = 8,559,174,460,226,494 gallons or in words 8.6 quadrillion gallons or 32.4 quadrillion liters.
AccountKiller
Just days after NASA denounces any findings of life on Mars, they come up something that, while technically does not prove there is life on mars, does say that it's within the realm of possibliities !
Make mine a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.
Thanks!
I want to know whether that sea contains more than just H2O. Like C, H, N, and O in other molecules, and in what proportion. Like perhaps the proportions in RNA or DNA.
--
make install -not war
To say nothing of the mass hysteria that occurs when the words "life" and "mars" are randomly strung together in the same sentence, then repeated secondhand to an over-eager journalist.
It should be illegal to say that freedom of speech should be limited.
about the age of the ice pack. Estimated at 5 million years by crater impact aging. If Mars had water 5 million years ago on the surface then it may had a atmosphere then also. And if it had a atmosphere just as long as earth did until 5 million years ago then there could of been life on the planet and advanced life at that. We've seen microbes on ancient mars rocks so it's entirely possible there was life on mars but to what extent we cant see. Maybe storms or whatever stripped mars of it's atmosphere erased any visible signs from the surface such as vegetation.
I don't think the guy who wrote the headline read the article... A frozen sea, surviving as blocks of pack ice, ---->maysuggestlook similar--- to ice formations near Earth's poles "Maybe the ice is still there in the ground, protected by a volcanic cover, as they suggest," he says. I'm convinced.
FTA: Images from the High Resolution Stereo Camera on Mars Express show raft-like ground structures - dubbed "plates" - that look similar to ice formations near Earth's poles, according to an international team of scientists.
If it is indeed frozen H2O like in Antarctica, there is a possibility that it also contains liquid water within the ice. To the surprise of explorers, that was found in Antarctica.
I tried to find a link to that information but I couldn't find anything good. My source is this Antarctica documentary
I wonder what the temperature variation is on the Mars equator. Theoretically, how would that temperature variation affect a body of water of that size?
That's it, I will no longer fantasize about retiring to the Martian equator.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
if the frozen ice has fresh frozen fish as well.
1st it is warmer near the equator, so... so that would be a nicer place to live.
2nd if it can exist near the equator, it might also be found in the colder areas.
850m^2 * pi * 45m is 102,141,031m^3, which is 2.7E10 gallons. Ice is 107.5% the volume of its water mass, 2.5E10 gallons. Which is about 15-20% the size of only one of the NYC upstate reservoirs. Perhaps documenting the process by which this ice collected and buried will explain whether there was any other water, and where it went.
--
make install -not war
Somebody better go and inform Cohaagen.
Isn't the much more important mistake that they don't actually know that it's water?
SPORTS ILLUSTRATED:
A new hocky team is in town. Despite the ongoing lockout, the NHL has announced a new expansion franchise awarded to the Martian Terraformers.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
As exciting as the discovery is, The Slashdot summary reads like it's a done deal.
Actually, the article linked starts out with this (note the word "may" in the 1st sentence):
"A frozen sea, surviving as blocks of pack ice, may lie just beneath the surface of Mars, suggest observations from Europe's Mars Express spacecraft. The sea is just 5 north of the Martian equator and would be the first discovery of a large body of water beyond the planet's polar ice caps.
Images from the High Resolution Stereo Camera on Mars Express show raft-like ground structures - dubbed "plates" - that look similar to ice formations near Earth's poles, according to an international team of scientists."
"You're drunk with your tradition that has no validity I'm intoxicated with support for metrics come drink a decaliter with me we want metrics want want it now or we know we can't win I weigh 170 pounds that's 90 kilograms see metrics can even make you thin"
You know, your idiotic attempt to slam Bush would have been better if you spelles KETONES correctly.
I mean, how can you be an anti-Bushie if you can't get your facts straight?
Wait, that's the first requirement for anti-Bushie membership? Oops, sorry.
The km as been French ever since the French invented the SI during the French revolution dipstick.
Everyone knows that nature is static, and how things were 50, 100, or 1000 years ago are the way that they should be today, tomorrow, and forever!
The reason why large scale or long-term changes to the environment are so risky is not, as you mistakenly state, that nature is static. Rather, it is that nature is highly dynamic on time scales spanning millennia and we don't understand the dynamics yet. A significant change that we think produces benefits may, in the long term, have devastating consequences.
Once we understand natural systems sufficiently well to be able to predict the consequences of our actions in the long term, then we can engage in deliberate planet-wide engineering efforts, here on earth on on Mars. Until then, anything that alters our atmosphere, oceans, or ecology significantly is Russian roulette.
we will be able to choose from 3 diffrent tipe of water : 1. Mineral 2. Natural 3. Martian
;)
Nope, it'll be perrier, rolling rock, or whatever other variety of bottled water has been marketed as better than real water. You're not paying attention to this capitalism thing at all, are you?
Maybe it's just me, but that comment seems more +5, Insightful than +5 Funny...
I thought they had deployed the radar boom and discovered the Ice, but it turns out these are theorized findings from visible light photos. And it appears NASA doesn't agree totally with this. WTF? Why do the Euro's argue with us on every damn Mars thing? I mean how many times have they been to the Red Planet, oh I forgot, this is like their first FREAKING time.
When they deploy the MARSIS boom and verify this stuff, then I will crack the bubbly.
We can strip mine the rest later!
Best Slashdot Co
Lets hope so. It seems like non-caucasians have had to prove their worth in western society by building railroads or serving us food or being good at sports, so Aliens are gonna have a helluva time getting accepted as equals without some leverage...
You forgot Newater, you insensitive clod!
That article was last updated April 2, 1997. Let's discount all the major Martian findings since then on the basis of your "for kids" WEBPAGE FROM 1997.
What the Jesus fuck are you mods thinking?
Oh wait - it was "for kids" - now I understand.
The amusing thing to me is, most English types I've met---for some unknown reason--seem to assume that the US converted totally to metric years ago... while Americans assume exactly the reverse.
;-)
Sure, their gas is in liters, but aside from that they seem to be dragging their feet as much as we are in the conversion.
Besides, they still use "stone" for people's weights, which completely offsets any gains on the metric side.
It's something like 14 pounds = 1 stone, right?
m-
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
Some AC said: "I guess its just perspective but we're still very natural creations and therefore our actions are."
Wow, no matter how hard they try, some folk just don't get modern leftist enviro-terrorist dogma.
Don't ya see? Your not part of the natural order, your a human and therefor an obscenity. An unworthy being, not part of 'nature'. Anything you do is therefor 'unatural'.
Your only hope of salvation would be to , for example, bury nails in
forestry trees in the hope some forester is maimed
during his exploiting and unatural harvesting of mother natures wonderful bounty.
I was high on chocolate when I wrote this.
Something between the lines jumps out and bites your arm off. Soltan Gris / London
Maybe I'm retarded, but unlike your President I'm not actually proud of that fact Plus I don't actually run the country. So what the fuck does that make you, asshole? Just another bootspittle blind monkeyfuck follower, doesn't it.
Now go back home and masturbate to pictures of Sean Hannity, ok?
Isn't that the standard unit for large pieces of water ice on this planet?
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
the only people who understand the metric system in the first place. They are the science geeks remember?
News for nerds editors should understand and use the metric system.
Since the French Revolution
The creation of the decimal Metric System at the time of the French Revolution and the subsequent deposition of two platinum standards representing the meter and the kilogram, on 22 June 1799, in the Archives de la République in Paris can be seen as the first step in the development of the present International System of Units.The name for the International System of Units is abbreviated SI. In French it is: Le Système International.
See the Pictures of the Flood of '08
They've shown that while in the past, it was thought to be a lava flow, that it cannot be. There are formations at scales that can be explained by an iced-over sea or great lake, but not by a lava flow, which would have solidified before these features could have formed. The amplitudes of pressure ridges from flow around craters also fits water-ice covered water, not lava.
One might even argue that there may still be some liquid water underneath the ice.
...since there's nothing there to get put out by any mistake, except dust, rocks, and wind.
Actually, Mars is now thought to still be volcanically active. Not as much as as Earth or Io, of course, but there are geologically recent lava flows in a number of locations, and vulcanism is still the strongest candidate for the methane replenishment on Mars observed recently.
Hey idiot, since when are Americans responsible for the King's system?
...welcome our new Earthling overlords !
-- a Martian
So we don't know. Though we found quakes on the Moon, and we certainly see landslides on Mars.
Actually there -are- geologically recent lava flows on Mars, indicating that there still is vulcanism. The presence of methane in the atmosphere also indicates this.
Planetary magnetism is not at all well understood. We have lots of presently untested hypotheses, but that is about it.
BTW, there are regions on Mars with local magnetic fields strong enough to protect against radiation.
slashbots are teh suk morans
The confirmation that a large body of frozen water exists on Mars is excellent news for any future manned missions to the planet. Its presence means that Human beings could sustain themselves for much longer periods of time without the need to transport gallons of water for use when they get there. With the addition of green houses it is even possible that water might be of vital use in growing food for consumption on the surface of Mars.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
.... pepople is not responsible for the green house effect!
/. suggested that human breathing generates more CO2 than our polution.
And the CO2 generated would be too little to terraform the planet, unless we all went there and started breathing in earnest, since some kind soul here in
I can think of several way to achieve agitated copious breathing, exercise is not one of them......
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... but many Mexicans drink tap water, we know were it is safe to do so and were additional steps are needed to purify it (boiling, filtering, killing germs).
I drank tap water all my life while there without any problems (maybe I aquired immunity against stuff USians can't deal with).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Why is it no matter how carefully one edits ones /. posting, one always makes a boo boo? Ah well, to err is to be hyooman.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
Yes, that would be the backwards French system, based on counting on fingers instead of the computer-age octal and hexidecimal English system.
But the rovers have accomplished a -great deal-
I suppose it might be the case that the inferior instruments on Mars Express (the radar sounder not yet having been unfurled) might have done interesting science, but the secrecy-minded European absolutist oligarchy keeps such matters to themselves. Look how they behaved at Titan. We'd know almost nothing if NASA hadn't let info out.
I wonder when Poland Spring will be changing their theme song, due to pollution in Maine, to something like...
"Martian Spring~, what it means to be from Mars~"
buffering...
Notice how all science stuff is in metric, it makes more sense (Powers of ten).
Honestly, I don't 'get' how the metric system makes more sense (than, I assume, the imperial system). No system is perfect, and each has their own strenghts and weaknesses -- divide a meter and a yard by 3 and tell me which 'makes more sense'. Then tell me to measure something really small.
Required reading for internet skeptics
New Scientist also links to a PDF of a paper
And here I thought it was just proprietary vector image nonsense... XD
any such program for agitated copious breathing which required a partner would never, ever happen as long as the people came from Slashdot. ;-)
Sustainability and energy independence essay
And basically what we're saying here is that the French, unbeknownst to the rest of the world, actually invented something useful (terrible thought really).
Of course, how many people consider the SI to be a French invention?
Math is easier in metric because of its simplicity. Saying "divide a foot and a metre by 3 and tell me what makes more sense" is offtopic, anything besides a factor of 3 divided by 3 is evil, thats no fault of either metric or impereal systems. If you want to measure something small then metric makes ALOT more sense, because you can express the size in scientific notation, i.e. powers of ten, so say something is 3 nanoMETERS thin, i could just say 3*10^-7cm, or simply 3nm thin. Now, tell me, how many inches (i dont know any smaller impereal measurement) is 3nm? 1.18110236 × 10-07 inches says google calc. Tell me which looks better to do math with, 0.0000003cm or .000000118110236 inches?
Well a meter/3 and a yard/3 both make as much sense as each other, I assume you are reffering to foot, but just because you named a third of a yard doesnt make it more sensible. I have declared a third of a metre to be called thirmeter. there problem solved,
your other point, measuring really small stuff. now when i go to the hardware store to pick a drill bit, ive got a choice of 1/8 inches or 6 mm, I like the 6 mm bit better
the advantage of the metric system comes from the fact that you only have to remember one relationship. (ie 1000m in a km, 1000g in a kg) with imperial there are many different relationships to know, like 12inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard and so on.
This service has been brought to you by GNU units.
yes and your mom weighs 10 femtopounds. but that's like, 4.5359237 x 10^15 kg - how ugly.
no, you're right. *obviously* metric makes more sense, since in *your* head it makes more sense.
don't confuse your own level of comfort using the metric system with actual, objective fact about what system of measurement is "better." just because you think powers of 10 of precisely observable measurements (as in how SI defines its units) makes more sense as a basis for measurement than miscellaneous objects and body parts doesn't make it so.
europe smells
You know, your idiotic attempt to slam Bush would have been better if you spelles KETONES correctly.
Yeah let him have it! He sure misunderestimated you!
Wow, soon they might find some melted water, and maybe even some evaporated vapor! ;-)
"frozen sea, surviving as blocks of pack ice, may lie just beneath the surface of Mars, suggest observations from Europe's Mars Express spacecraft."
... both of which may eventually be proven true, but have not, to date! We still don't have the missing link that Darwin himself said you better find before you even start thinking about calling this theory fact.
Indications are not the DISCOVERY of a thing itself. This is the most annoying thing about the religious atheist scientists these days. They are all over the place screaming absurdities such as EVOLUTION IS A FACT and there IS WATER ON MARS
Science loses credibility every time it jumps the shark like this. It's so annoying and so unnecessary. I have many, many religious friend who are incredible scientists. The two practices are not mutually exclusive by any stretch of the imagination. Pick up Simon Singh's new book, Big Bang (not to be confused with the other bang book), for a great modern historical example.
Don't even get me started on how much we owe to super methodical clergy over the ages, in terms of observing and recording. Finding that Design implies a Designer in no way diminishes the measurable and verifiable data collected by Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist and other clergy scientists. So chill out on the dogmatic, narrow-minded psuedo-scientific voodoo and atheistic hubris, man!
"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." - Neil Peart
A small railgun mounted on the next probe could fire a tungsten dart at a speed enough to vaporise on contact with the surface. Spectroscopic examination of the resulting fireball could revel traces (or Lots ) of water.
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
This is really interesting. I noticed that Titan results were extremely difficult to come by (especially more than the occasional press release image) and would like to hear if there's some objective truth behind that.
One simple rule for its versus it's
worth following up on?r ctica -lakevos
http://www.resa.net/nasa/antarctica.htm#anta
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
Now all we need to do is find those giant Martian ice melting machines and Mars will be our home away from home.
Revenge of the Nerds 2... :)
Great movie... love Ogre... gotta watch that again
. If you want to measure something small then metric makes ALOT more sense,
That was exactly my point -- neither system 'makes more sense' than the other. How this point was missed is beyond me.
anything besides a factor of 3 divided by 3 is evil,
You're intitled to your own religious beliefs. I won't argue those. (Though I think you mean multiple of 3, not factor.)
Required reading for internet skeptics
Well a meter/3 and a yard/3 both make as much sense as each other,
Yes, exactly my point.
I assume you are reffering to foot, but just because you named a third of a yard doesnt make it more sensible.
I never claimed one system was more sensible than the other.
he advantage of the metric system comes from the fact that you only have to remember one relationship. (ie 1000m in a km, 1000g in a kg) with imperial there are many different relationships to know, like 12inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard and so on.
That was the idea. Each system has it's strenghts and weaknesses. I didn't intend to advocate one system over another.
Required reading for internet skeptics
Would you please review your "Blue Collar Comedy" tape for the proper use of "Here's your sign"? You're supposed to have a sarcastic remark in counter to a stupid question. I'll bet your programs take FOREVER to correct for syntax... if you code, that is.
"The moon does act as a sort of gyro stabilizer. Because of it's influence, the axis of our planet wobbles in a fairly regular pattern, giving us seasons."
Um, what? You're probably thinking of precession, which is due to the earth's rotation and takes thousands of years. Surely you remember the spinning top/bicycle wheel experiment in beginning physics?
Seasons happen because of the fairly stable tilt of the earth's axis.
But ... what are the strengths of imperial measurements, other than familiarity?
The real Captain Avatar is a fictional character, so I suppose he doesn't mind if I impersonate him.
Why cant we 'vote' our karma on the posters and give them negative karma if they post bad/repeat/errored stuff. Then eventually, if they get 0 they will be banned from ever posting again.
Ohhhhhh, I get it, its a communist website, where we cannot VOTE for the leaders/men in charge.... ok lets move along, no democracy, 100% pure mafia leadership here.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Id like to know what happened to mars in what order... ie maybe try a 2.5b year sim.
Did this happen?
1. normal planet, oceans, life, etc.. mini Earth like, maybe perhaps even prealiens on it.
2. next olympus mons erupts, first ever large volcano, it wont stop, keeps gushing crap for years, growing taller and taller, till it punches a whole in the atmosphere.
3. the hot gasses/etc... and normal atmosphere start to leave the lower area and out into higher orbit where they leak into deep space due to the 'hole' in the atmosphere.
4. pressure keeps dropping yearly, mons keeps growing and pushing more air out into deep space.
5. life starts to get cold, and water starts to ice up
6. mons stops, atmosphere lost 80% of its air.
7. billions of volcano ash in orbit starts to slowly fall and cover the whole surface, as it does the ground is frozen and dead.
8. eventually the planet is covered 100% by the falling 'debris'
9. even longer... most of the fallen debris is on the ground, and winds etc... over millions if years redistribute it.
10. dead planet caused by one MF volcano.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
"You're probably thinking of precession."
No, I'm thinking about the gravitational influence of the moon on our planet. Maybe you mis-interpereted what I meant by "wobble". The tilting back and forth of our planet I call a wobble. If you've ever looked at a 3D simulation of our planet at high speed over the course of say, ten years, it looks more like wobbling back and forth rather than simply tilting back and forth.
The Earth is not a perfect rotating sphere. And it's mass is not perfectly distributed. Left on it's own, without the influence of the moon, our nice fairly stable planet would be rotating on three axes simultaneously. Do a quick google to learn more about the stabilizing effect of the moon on our planet.
Even our orbit wouldn't be the same as the Earth would be more susceptible to external gravitational influences like the planets and the sun.
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You can to admin, the rovers current location in a totally smoooth boring place is a let down. Sure they find a few rocks and stuff, but it would have been better if one of those rovers went there.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
No one would have believed, in the first years of the twenty-first century, that Martian affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space. ... Few Martians even considered the possibility of life on other planets and yet, across the gulf of space, minds infinitely odder than ours regarded Mars with envious eyes, and slowly, and surely, they drew their plans againsts us .....
(cue 70's concept album music now)
[Thanks to my friend Jay for this one]
Yes, because communism and democracy are mutually exclusive. Or does the NY Post now interchange 'communist state' with 'dictatorship'?
Bradbury called it. Granted his date of 1999 was a little off, but hey, at least he knew everyone on Earth plans on heading off to Mars. What's really scary is all this talk of terraforming. Bradbury would be right in more than one way about the eventual fate of Mars if humans were to climb out of Earth's orbit into Mars. I think the Martian Chronicles should become required reading in HS. The only thing the teacher would have to tell students is that it's unlikely we'll kill off the telepathic Martian species with a disease. It's more likely our scientists will capture, kill and study. "We're pretty sure they aren't intelligent."
That's 45 meters deep, not kilometers.
It's actually *30* meters deep now if you RTFA. It started out at 45 meters, 15 meters are the presumed loss due to sublimation.
Be faithful to your obsessions. Identify them and be faithful to them, let them guide you like a sleepwalker. JG Ballard
Do a quick google to learn more about the stabilizing effect of the moon on our planet.
... tilt of the earth's axis".
Do a quick google to learn more about the frequency of seasons. They tend to be roughly annual, not happen "over the course of say, ten years".
As the GP states, "Seasons happen because of the
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
Left on it's own, without the influence of the moon, our nice fairly stable planet would be rotating on three axes simultaneously
Just like Mercury, Venus and Mars?
Mostly in divisions.
Required reading for internet skeptics
"The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets forty rods to the hog's head and that's the way I likes it!"
Honestly, I don't 'get' how the metric system makes more sense (than, I assume, the imperial system). No system is perfect, and each has their own strenghts and weaknesses -- divide a meter and a yard by 3 and tell me which 'makes more sense'.
To three significant digits...
1/3 meter = 33.3 cm = 333 mm = 0.000333 km
1/3 yard = 1.00 foot = 12.0 inches = 0.000189 mi
The first case is simpler; just move the decimal point to change units. In makes more sense than trying to determine whether to multiply by 12, 1/3, 1/5280, etc.
Read Robert Zubrin's book, "The Case for Mars" and stop spreading the radiation bogeyman.
Astronauts on a trip to Mars only need a layer of 2 feet or so of water surrounding their craft (which they would need to bring for initial water supplies anyways) to protect them from solar radiation during the trip.
As well, air-tight underground housing could easiliy be constructed using adobe brick techniques, using Martian soil and plasticized coatings sprayed on the inner walls. A few metres under the Martian surface, or in Mars-direct habitats as described in his book, and you're completely shielded from radiation.
International airline pilots receive as much radiation during their careers as Martian colonists would receive on *multiple* Earth-Mars transits and regular living on or under the surface. It's not an issue.
ERROR 144 - REBOOT ?
The "100 words for snow" myth comes from the fact that Inuktitut is a compounding language. It'd be like counting snowball, snowflake, snowstorm, snowblind, snowfall, snowman, snowdrift, snowpack, etc. as words. Ask any skier how many words there are for different conditions on the slopes, and you'll find that English is just as guilty of having a lot of words for snow as Inuktitut is often accused of.
Only trolls who KNOW the TRUE TRUTH can make such blatantly misinformed statements.
,"You know how water weighs a kilogram per liter?" He said the equivalent of the Kiwi "Duh", and the explanation only got easier from there.
Example A of how metric is better than english/imperial/merican: Explaining drilling mud weight to a Kiwi one time, he was totally lost in the "pounds per gallon of water" being raised by adding bentonite to make it 9#'s per Gal, so, without even having to pull out a calculator, I said
BTW,Why divide a meter by 3, anyway?
Example B: How many tablespoons in a cup? How much does a quart of water weigh? Is it really "pints a pound the world around?" or just pretty close?
How much does an ounce of water weigh? does it weigh an ounce? If it did, and there are 32 ounces in a quart, and 16 ounces in a pint, and a pint weighs a pound (but it doesnt really weigh quite a pound, now does it?) it would be easy to say how much a pint weighs, and how much an ounce of water weighs, but they don't even mean the same the thing, even though they sure sound and look like they mean the same thing.
So what don't you get?
Obviously the same thing the rest of Americans don't get, because we STILL don't USE the metric system!!
sig wig dig jig rig big mig fig gig higg rig pig tig zig
1/3 meter != 33.3cm (it's an irrational number)
Obviously I'm not making myself very clear.
I am fully aware that it is the tilt of the Earth's axis that gives us seasons. I'm fully aware that we have four seasons each year.
What I said was that if you look at a simulation of the Earth's back and forth motion at a fairly decent speed, you'd notice that the tilt is not exactly back and forth. There is a small deviation to either side of the central axis line.
This is the wobble I'm refering to.
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I'm sure you've noticed that the three planets you just mentioned are practically devoid of significant geophysical activity?
The Earth's mass distribution is constantly changing. This directly influences the way our planet rotates. Take, for exmple, the tsunami quake which sped up Earth's rotation by about 3 milliseconds.
Over the course of millions of years, tectonic shifts can have a profoud impact on how a planet rotates in 3 dimensional space. Having large enough moons also influences this rotation.
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I'm no physicist, but it seems unlikely that a body such as Earth would develop more than one true spin axis. Some wobble or precession, sure, but not two distinct spin axies.
BTB, at least within the US, it may be noted that bottled water must pass fewer tests for purity or contamination than tap water does. Then too, don't trust unsealed bottled water. A friend of mine used to work as a waiter in Tijuana, Mexico and if they ran short on bottled water, they'd bottle their tap water and sell it as bottled water.
Personally, I find it kind of weird the number of people at restaurants who insist on bottled water for their drinks, but then drink them in glasses full of ice made from the tap water...
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Think of Earth like a bowling ball with a 1 kg mass that is free to spread out and move around. When the Pangea super-continent existed, that mass was located mostly on one side of the planet, causing exagerated motion in both the horizontal and vertical planes. The land masses spread out over the millions of years, and in doing so stabilized the motion.
The moon likely played an important role in this (the moon had a much stronger influence in the past as it was significantly closer to Earth).
We also can not disregard the shield effect of the moon. Not all asteroid impacts are dead-on. Without something balancing the Earth, a series of strong enough impacts could impart enough momentum to tilt the planet (like some of the impacts on the moon, or the impact that created the Hudson bay).
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I dont SPELLES ketones correctly.