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Whirlwinds on Mars, From the Ground
Neil Halelamien writes "Back in 1999, satellite images were photographed of 5-mile-high whirlwinds streaking across the surface of Mars. A couple of months ago the Spirit rover got a close up view of whirlwind tracks, and this past week photographed a whirlwind in action (animation). It's thought that these dust devils may be responsible for the mystery power boost to the rovers' solar cells. Last year the rovers also spotted clouds and frost."
I can die happy now.
Not impressive compared to the tornado footage we're used to from the local TV station. But one must remember that the rovers' actions are scripted in advance. So it was a complete coincidence that a whirlwind happened to be in-frame when they took a photo. Which says something about how common they must be if we just happened to snag a picture of one.
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I'd imagine a few problems with teraforming Mars..
First off is the point that you made. If we use some process to make the atmosphere more earth-like, we could encourage the growth of anything that may be lying dormant there, or we could kill it. We've only explored a very small part of the planet, and still don't have complete information about everything we've found. For example, what are those little balls that they found in the soil? Probably just rocks, I'd imagine, but maybe not. They have found traces of water (mostly mud-like). I'd imagine that we'd do something with the free-standing water, to get it to vaporize, making the atmosphere thicker, which would also likely start weather patterns and rain.
To make the atomsphere more earth like, we'd probably send some plants over, such as algae, and maybe grasses. As it grows, it may cover artifacts that could be interesting. I'll use my own back yard as an example. When I moved into this house, the yard was all dirt and rocks. We spent a week digging up rocks, but there are still some small rocks in the dirt. We then planted grass. The yard is now very lush and green, but it is hopeless to think you can see the little rocks that were there.
Imagine "teraforming" Giza (Egypt). Occasionally, archeologists find interesting rocks, like the Rosetta Stone, simply sticking out of the sand, because wind blew sand away from it. If someone encouraged grass to grow there, through aquaducts and irrigation, sand wouldn't blow away, and whatever is burried will remain burried until someone tries to build a strip mall on top of yet another unidentified tomb.
Personally, I'm all for teraforming Mars. For a long time, I've believed that for Humanity to survive, we *MUST* have colonies on more than just Earth. We have the technology to kill everything on this planet in minutes, and it takes a mistake by one person to start that chain of events. Maybe through our own greed and industrialization, we've already set the earth on a fatal spiral through pollution. There are also other events that can happen, which are on more of a sci-fi scale. What if the sun goes super nova? What if a giant asteroid crashes into the earth?
Sure, we don't have the technology now to colonize a planet light-years away. Just like a child, we need to learn to take baby steps, before we can run. Mars is becoming close enough for us to 'practice' on. It probably won't be perfect, but it will be an attempt. After several attempts, we'll do better at it.
If we never teraform Mars, if humanity debates it for the rest of eternity, we'll never learn to travel faster or further, and doom ourselves to eventually overpopulate the Earth and die.
Likewise, if we never populate Mars, our space travel technology will be very slow to grow. Necessity is the mother of invention. If we have a need to travel the distance between Earth and Mars faster, someone will invent something which can achieve this. It may not be a super-cool spacecraft. Our own science fiction has eluded to creative solutions, although technologically impossible at this time such as Wormholes, transporters, and 'Stargate' (good show).
Eventually, we will have the technology to go to distant galaxies, but we have to manage to at least get people to the next planet first. In the last 100 years, we've come a long way. The wright brothers flew their first powered airplane in 1903. Now we can fly all the way around the earth at several times the speed of sound. Wars do great things for technology. Jet and rocket powered craft were innovated during WWII. Slow progress has been made with other forms of aircraft. The cold war was great for pushing space technology, even if it was only for political reasons. America had to do better than the Russians, so we were each trying to out-do each other.
The first ion drive [universetoday.com] craft that I know of is Japan's Hayabusa, which is currently flying to retrieve samples from an asteroid making a close p
hehe,i predict that one of the rovers will get destroyed in a dust storm...
No comments? Strange....
They're tasty. Go ahead mod me down.
"Now we're assuming they're cleaning, but all we can really say is that overnight the solar panels produced between 2 and 5 percent additional power immediately,'' he said. "We're surmising that for some reason dust is being removed from the solar panel and that's increasing the efficiency of the sunlight being converted to electricity."
Any hardcore space-geeks care to propose any other explanation?
Seriously, i'm just wondering what else might explain this, because enough moving atmosphere on Mars to clean the panels is very interesting to me. Other possibilities anyone?
Have you followed the animation link? There is something at the bottom that looks like a tiny tinfoil hat that appears and disappears and reappears ad nauseam! Just thinking about it I have whirlwinds in my head... I need to get some sleep.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
It's thought that these dust devils may be responsible for the mystery power boost to the rovers' solar cells.
:(
It was Martians who powered them up!! This dust devil theory is just yet another government trick in fooling you that there are no Martians!! Next they'll reiterate there's no giant face sculpture on Mars.
Vibration from movement: is there enough jostle to shake dust off the panels from mere rover movement about the surface or is that too small to matter here?
Would these areas be good places for future missions because of this? I mean, if we knew with a good amount of certainty that there will be storms which will clean off solar panels, this could be a target area for future long term missions?
Will the next batch of rovers be equipped with windsocks, to measure the direction of the wind?
And what do you call those spinning things to measure airspeed? The ones with four arms with little hemispheric "cups" that catch the wind. KnowwhatImeanVerne?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
NASA is somewhat concerned about Martian dust devils and it's impact on future human missions to Mars. There have been at least two expeditions to the Arizona desert by NASA people to study dust devils, both run out of the University of Arizona. I had the opportunity to spend a month in the Arizona desert gathering data on the second trip.
I wouldn't say that NASA is particularly concerned about dust devils -- due to the lower gravity, dust devils on mars would be much weaker than those on earth, even if they are larger. Even on earth, dust devils post little threat. Some of the ones we studied were over 2 miles tall, and you could walk right through them with absolutely no danger. While the original trip was sponsored by the HEDS (spoiler warning--Leia is born before Luke) funded Matador experiment to see if the dust devils posed any danger to human exploration, the primary concerns were over static electricity and dust getting into space suits.
What NASA is really interested in is how dust affect the geology of the planet. In the absense of water or strong winds, dust devils may in fact be the primary erosive force on Mars. During the first half of the 20th century, astronomers noticed that Mars changed color depending on the season, and this led them to beleive that there was rich vegetation on Mars. When the first orbiters and lander arrived, we learned that this wasn't quite true, but we still had no other solution. Now, scientists believe that is was dust devils, which are a seasonal occurance, that were actually reconfiguring the landscape of the planet. We have actually seen pictures of light colored planes that are crisscrossed by dark dust devil trails. Spoiler alert! Grievous, believing himself victorious in a duel, reveals to Obi-Wan that Sidious is Palpatine.
The problem is that very little is known about dust devils on Earth. I only know of one scientific paper published on the subject. While some of the work we did was trying to find out the proerties of dust devils, especially the electrostatic properties, to help create an accurate model for their formation on Mars, this was not really why we were there. The primary goal of the NASA researchers (spoiler: As Windu and others are battling Palpatine, Anakin arrives and instinctively protects Palpatine, killing all the Jedi) was to study the dust devils on earth in order to learn how to study them on Mars. We were mainly out there to test a set of instruments planned for Matador (including some far out stuff, like using a special UV camera to detect sparks caused by static electricity).
I don't think that terraforming Mars would help here.
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The link talks about Opportunity's power boost, but a few days ago Spirit also had the same thing happen to it.
Quite amazing stuff, if this keeps up the rovers should last a very long time!
For a long time, I've believed that for Humanity to survive, we *MUST* have colonies on more than just Earth. We have the technology to kill everything on this planet in minutes, and it takes a mistake by one person to start that chain of events. Maybe through our own greed and industrialization, we've already set the earth on a fatal spiral through pollution. There are also other events that can happen, which are on more of a sci-fi scale. What if the sun goes super nova? What if a giant asteroid crashes into the earth?
I'm all for spreading colonies, but your last two examples are a little more realistic than "sci-fi." We know that the sun's going to die; it'll take 4.5 billion years, but it will definitely happen. And a large asteroid will almost certainly strike the Earth. One killed the dinosaurs, and that was only 65 million years ago (a blink of an eye in the history of the Earth).
lasindi
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof of this theorem that this sig is too small to contain.
Pretty cool idea, but this image seems to be a major let down. I understand there is limited data/photos but its almost better to just not have something than have this.
Also -- and I realize this is a bit offtopic, but this clearly does not work for me in Firefox. I get one frame and a flash of the second, not enough to see it clearly.
Works fine in IE.
A Science Vessel?
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
It's easy TAS the devil is on holiday, got a ride with duck dodgers and presto, thats why they are called dust "devils"
"Hidden" movie spoilers from ROTS in the text.
Throughout evolution process until today, no entity EVER had "COMPLETE INFORMATION" about everything they have found, if we defined the term according to high-order human intelligence and the circumstances.
Therefore, unfortunately in a way, if ever such a evolutionary need arise, with or without the so called "COMPLETE INFORMATION" we will just have to do it, an observation based on both recorded and theorized natural and human history.
You can't see the Great Wall unless you got a real good zoom lens (radar don't count).
http://www.snopes.com/science/greatwal.htm
seems like the 2nd frame in the animatation was rotated so that i'll resemble the original so we can notice the difference. is it just me or was the rover extremely tilted to take that 2nd image. i mean i might understand a 5-10 degree tilt or difference, but this is like a 15 degree difference.
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It won't be a supernova like the OP said, though.
"Studies have shown that people who eat peanuts live longer than those who do not eat."
...was chasing after storms a good idea? There are far less risky ways of getting solar panels cleaned. Like wiper blades, air jets or sets of traffic lights. ;-)
We can't get grasses to grow in Tuscon, let alone Valles Marineris. Even terran algae would have a tough time of it, with so little CO2 and sunlight. So I don't think there's much danger of them obscuring the geography, and even less chance of them covering up any artifacts... since it's already pretty clear that there was never any civilisation capable of creating any artifacts.
Mars is just a huge rock, with some water and vapors clinging to it. An astonishingly fascinating rock, but still just a rock. If we ever undertake terraforming it, that will be so far enough in the future that I think we'll have a pretty good opportunity between now and then to give that big rock a good studying... long enough to make an informed judgment of whether to proceed with Project Genesis or not. Worrying about the introduction of interplanetary kudzu at this point is a bit premature.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
It won't be a supernova like the OP said, though.
No, but the Earth will be swallowed up.
lasindi
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof of this theorem that this sig is too small to contain.
I don't think that terraforming Mars would help here.
Right. We'd be so preoccupied rewriting all the books about stellar physics to explain how it's possible for our star to go supernova, that we wouldn't have time to move everyone from the "atomize" zone (Earth's orbit) to the "atomize a few minutes later" zone (Mars' orbit).
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Damnit, why doesn't the <sub> tag work.
Hooptie
"Heavens, it appears that my weewee has been stricken with rigor mortis!" -- Stewie Griffin
Frost on Mars had already been observed by Viking in 1979 (e.g., here).
Why anyone would go to the trouble of digging up my http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=98777& cid=8427936year old post on dust devils and then insert Star Wars spoilers into it is completely beyond me. Bonus points for remembering my post, but several thousand negative points for the plagarism and spoilers.
He didn't remember your post, he found it via search (google, not slashdot's search which is broken). In fact, this may not be a person at all, but a script that searches on the article title, finds a highly rated post, and re-posts it. Normally those are used for automatically growing karma on an account, but maybe the GNAA re-purposed it.
Why is the resolution complete shit?
Just wait until I have pumped several hundred yottatons of helium into the sun and then tell me again that it's not gonna be a supernova.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
and could i breathe it ? would it smell ?
or is the atmosphere useless to us from a practical POV as far as humans are concerned
It looks to me like the surface is covered with little whirlwind tracks. Do whirlwinds explain why there are so many lighter patches in the pictures from the animation?
For manned Mars missions, maybe we should send Hell Tanner and that killer RV from Damnation Alley? (Read Roger Zelazny's book before watching that movie.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
It doesn't matter anyway. Our sun *can't* go supernova.
I don't get it.
95.3% carbon dioxide (CO2),
2.7% nitrogen (N2),
1.6% argon (Ar),
0.15% oxygen (O2),
0.03% water vapor (H2O)
pressure
1-9 millibars, depending on altitude; average 7 mb
A little shy on the O2 department without a lot of terraforming action, pressure pretty low too, in short, no walking around without a spacesuit of some kind. It would seem possible though, given a large enough power source, you could run oxygen accumulators for inside use in your structures, etc..
taken from http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/M/Marsa
During the first half of the 20th century, astronomers noticed that Mars changed color depending on the season, and this led them to beleive that there was rich vegetation on Mars. When the first orbiters and lander arrived, we learned that this wasn't quite true, but we still had no other solution. Now, scientists believe that is was dust devils, which are a seasonal occurance...
That shows you never know for sure what life-like signs really mean. If somebody suggested dust storms/devils as the cause back then, somebody else would probably say, "yeah right".
Table-ized A.I.
Of course, terraforming is as of yet still in the realm of science fiction, and the day we can terraform another planet will be the day we can terraform ours, which will bring quite a few significant questions to the table about weather control.
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Thats not too unlike early Earth's atmosphere.
...While oxygen currently makes up 21 percent of the atmosphere, there was only a trace in the air when life first appeared on the planet. The single-celled bacterium dwelling in the oceans did not need oxygen to live....
S /GLY1033_n otes/lecture1.html
From the Geology department of the University of Florida:
http://ess.geology.ufl.edu/HTMLpages/ES
Ok, does no one realize that even *if* we put an atmosphere on mars, the gravity is different?
Lots of it would bleed into space, like it's done before.
And if we were to increase the mass(gravity), then it would start spiraling towards the sun and certain collision with earth.
The standard atmosphere surface pressure on earth is 1013.23 millibars (mb), or 29.92 inches of mercury.
A record High Pressure in Siberia made it up to 1083.8 mb/32.01 inches, and a Pacific Typhoon had a record low pressure of 879 mb/25.69 inches of mercury.
So, compared to Earth by altitude (approximately):
5,000 feet - 850 mb, 1 mile high 10,000 ft - 700 mb, 2 miles Oxygen required for unpressurized aircraft 18,000 ft - 500 mb (half the atmosphere is above/below this level), 3 miles 30,000 ft - 300 mb (70% of atmosphere is below), 6 miles high, entering the Stratosphere Dead Zone: Fatal without 100% oxygen source 53,000 ft - 100 mb (90% below, 10 miles, Stratosphere Fatal without Pressure suit: Blood pressure exceedes environment pressure, so oxygen is not absorbed Blood starts to outgas (boil) causing the Bends 68,000 ft - 50 mb (95%) 13 miles 102,000 ft - 10 mb (99%) 20 miles 104,000 ft - 9 mb High pressure on Mars 110,000 ft - 7 mb Average Mars pressure, 24 miles aloft on Earth 120,000 ft - 5 mb (99.5%) Higher terrain Mars pressure 157,000 ft - 1 mb (99.9%) Mars mountain tops, 30 miles on Earth Oh, yes - Earth has 78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen, 1% Argon, Carbon Dioxide, and all that. Water vapor can be up to 4% or so on hot, humid days.
In other words, Mars Tourists will need to pack much more than a towel and sunscreen.
Pacifist paratroopers yell, "Ghandi!" when they jump.
If you terraform it, you can tweak the weather to be what you'd like.
No you can't. The weather (and possibly even the climate on long time scales) is fundamentally chaotic.
Assuming the improbability of something the mass of our sun going supernova?
If the sun did go supernova, there is no place in our solar system that would make us safe. The shockwaves of the blast would rip everything apart.
Just think of the sizeof something like the crab nebula.
~X~
~X~
The problem with something like the weather is that a) as implied in the previous paragraph, it's difficult to predict what the weather is going to be much less model how our input controls will change the weather - currently we can manage only a week to two weeks with moderate accuracy (the longer timeframe you can predict something then the less energy you need to put into the input), b) the consequences of a mistake in your control or unintended outcomes can be quite catastrophic, c) there's a lot of conflicting interests in the weather control business, you will never get agreement on what the weather should be, d) weather control has military application, and e) weather control is likely to be highly centralized, that probably makes it vulnerable to terrorist or military attack and it'll probably become a font of bureaucratic power.
If you look at current weather control efforts, you already see some of the problems I'm talking about. Inducing rain (seeding clouds) in one location can take away rain from where the cloud would have gone. Politicians in some countries have too much control over the process. China apparently uses cloud seeding to "guarantee" that big, outdoor, political events in Beijing have the appropriate sunny weather.
You can control a chaotic system. The control input also is chaotic.
Oh, I would strongly dispute that! Having a chaotic system means that the influence of any type of input, chaotic or not, is unpredictable.
I think though that with the development of better algorithms and a sea of computers, one can build a computer network that is capable of supporting weather control.
The problem is that the chaos grows exponentially - long term prediction (and hence control) becomes mathematically impossible without infinite precision.
The examples you give aren't really weather control - just vague attempts without much science. These were largely abandoned decades ago when the true chaotic nature of weather was understood - seeding one cloud may actually result in more rain later - it just can't be worked out.
My point is that the unpredictability of the control input isn't necessarily a problem. For example, it works particularly well for near periodic chaotic systems (eg, some lasers) since the input is used to push the system towards a periodic output. Since the system and the input is unpredictable in the long term, you would expect the output to be unpredictable as well. That turns out not to be the case.
The problem is that the chaos grows exponentially - long term prediction (and hence control) becomes mathematically impossible without infinite precision.
One possible out here is to use the inputs to the system to reduce the chaotic dynamics and hence make the system somewhat more predictable.
One possible out here is to use the inputs to the system to reduce the chaotic dynamics and hence make the system somewhat more predictable.
:)
OK, I understand
I just think that fine weather control is somewhat in the realm of fantasy...
Got to agree with you here. Anyone who has the kind of power to manipulate the weather on a fine level probably can come up with a better use for that power than making sure it doesn't rain at the company picnic between 12pm and 5pm.
And a large asteroid will almost certainly strike the Earth.
Fortunately, the chances fall every year. If we can make it through the next millennium we should have all the technology we need to monitor and divert any approaching planet-killers.
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