Plan To Bomb Mars For Signs of Climate Change

Oliver Harris writes "Scientists are planning on launching huge copper slugs at Mars in the hope that they will reveal signs of climate change. Problem: What happens when the Martians launch their own copper slugs back?" From the article: "'It's neat because it's a brute force way to gain access to the subsurface of Mars,' says David Spencer, a team member at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, US. 'The impactor will be very simple and we'll get our first look at material from that depth.' Christensen says that will provide a crucial test for models of Mars's past climate."

Comments

copper

[mr_burns]

Um, I wish they'd use some other metal. We can use all the copper we can get here on earth. How about depleted uranium? I could do with less of that in my life and it works well as a projectile.

They should aim at the rovers (not a joke)

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, call me crazy...

If they aimed at them, they are pretty unlikely to actually hit one, but if they got close enough that one of the rovers could examine the ejecta and go into the crater they'd learn a hell of a lot more than by just studying the spectrum of the ejecta from space.

Are you wearing your tinfoil hat?

[tqft]

If they can launch a huge copper slug to Mars - where else can they land it?

Hmmm - any guesses people? Go on - you know the answer.

Large accurate placed explosive without nuclear fallout.

Think of Mars as target practice.