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Phoenix Mars Lander Deploys Robotic Arm, Possibly Finds Ice
The Phoenix Mars Lander has successfully deployed its robotic arm and tested other instruments including a laser designed to detect dust, clouds, and fog. The arm will be used to dig up samples of the Martian surface, which will be analyzed as a possible habitat for life. A camera on the arm will allow pictures to be taken of the ground directly beneath the lander. The camera has already seen what may be ice, which was exposed when the soil was disturbed by the landing. The data collected by the arm will be compared to recent findings which suggest that water on Mars may have been too salty for most known forms of life.
Don't we already have two rovers on Mars that seem to have MUCH better capabilities than this thing?
...that this lander does as well as the other two.
United States is going to send shipments of ice from Mars to cool the warming caused by its gas guzzlers
They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me. -Nathaniel Lee
Lets wait for the test data to confirm if it is ice. For all we know it "could" be oil ;-)
They can't tell if it's ice or not because the photo is in black and white. It's 2008, why are the these image sensors not capable of color?
Just because its too salty for 'most' life doesn't mean its too salty for ANY life.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Salty. Red. Once covered in liquid.
It's clear to me that Mars was once a giant Bloody Mary for the gods. It's the only explanation that fits.
I love science!
"... compared to recent findings which suggest that water on Mars may have been too salty for most known forms of life."
Sure, but don't count the halophiles out. Happy in 2 Molar salt solutions? Wow.
...now after they screwed up they try to hide it. Check out this leaked photo. Poor dude!
...if they'd landed a couple kilometres to the West, they'd've landed in the middle of the town square...
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
. . . I could have given them some.
Not a typewriter
Enough of this Mars Lander NASA JPL stuff. Our collective efforts (by both governments and science) should instead be devoted entirely to worrying about keeping the lights and heat on instead of this pointless intellectual drivel.
I mean, we need to make some leaps and bounds in terms of energy policy, transportation, and even materials engineering, and in *extremely* short order.
Otherwise, in a couple of billion years from now, some alien probe will be landing on earth, trying to figure out if there was every life over here!
But then again,it might be too late already. In which case, these little events serve as convenient distractions for the populace, benefiting only our present governments, so that we keep buying things like good consumers, as if nothing was wrong.
We should send Halliburton to investigate, immediately!
Most native Martians seem to be robotic immigrants....
Why dont they put some granades on those robots so we can beat the shit out of those red-commie-martians?
Hell, I bet they are ay-rabs as well with all that sand arround and all.
Perhaps they have WMD's as well!
And also, if a big hit as the landing "uncovered" ice, well the granades could be of certain scientific use....
NO SIG
Before the lander even took off, we all knew it might find ice. Now it's landed there's a press release saying it might have found ice. Is there any news content here? Maybe what's different is that previously we knew it might have found something that might be ice, but now it's definitely found something that might be ice. But previously we also knew it might have found something that was definitely ice. Might be definitely, definitely might be? Please, someone wake me when it's definitely definite.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
It isn't the degree that makes a politician. It's good that you understand that you didn't study any science though.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Being a PolSci graduate does not make you a politician.
It makes you, very probably, a pothead, a great guy to converse with.... and a somewhat disturbing character since youre posting on slashdot.
Now "saying blatant things about science without knowing anything you talk about", THAT makes you a politician.
NO SIG
Sometimes the saltiness is not the problem. Some women just can't handle the texture.
It also tends to depend on how much red meat and asparagus you've been eating, too. Sometimes it's good to sweeten it up with some diet coke. (The caffeine is a good diuretic, the water dilutes it, and the water-soluble aspartame sweetens it up).
Your mom doesn't care for the saltiness though.
Mars has life, this we know, for the demons tell us so!
http://www.evocationmagic.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=9
Once you evoke a demon from Mars, you'll see how trivial this life on Earth really is.
A simple Goetic ritual anyone may do:
http://www.evocationmagic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=182
It's all a joke and make believe, you say, until you try it and prove it to yourself.
Evoke now, banish never.
The demons await your call...
Try it now.. think of it as a Goetia@Home, your mind being the distributed computing client.
Let your semen drop on the demon's sigil, his manifestation will occur.
Because if it is ice, this would be the first time in history that fire has melted ice. Let's get a physicist in to verify prove this.
>> Why are we constantly relying on Earth standards to predict what life on an other planet requires?
Thinking about this question for all of one half of a second, I can only come up with the answer that Earth based life is the only type of life we have ever encountered.
Maybe, just maybe, this is why we use that metric.
Do we (meaning those who truely contemplate such things) know that this is a narrow window in which to frame our query? Yes. Contrary to your beliefs, this has occurred to people other than yourself.
Carry on.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
conspiracy theorists are being vindicated. some might choose a tin umbrella to go with their hats. the fairytail is WINDing DOWn now. let your conscience be yOUR guide. you can be more helpful than you might have imagined. there are still some choices. if they do not suit you, consider the likely results of continuing to follow the corepirate nazi hypenosys story LIEn, whereas anything of relevance is replaced almost instantly with pr ?firm? scriptdead mindphuking propaganda or 'celebrity' trivia 'foam'. meanwhile; don't forget to get a little more oxygen on yOUR brain, & look up in the sky from time to time, starting early in the day. there's lots going on up there.
http://news.google.com/?ncl=1216734813&hl=en&topic=n
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/opinion/31mon1.html?em&ex=1199336400&en=c4b5414371631707&ei=5087%0A
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/world/29amnesty.html?hp
is it time to get real yet? A LOT of energy is being squandered in attempts to keep US in the dark. in the end (give or take a few 1000 years), the creators will prevail (world without end, etc...), as it has always been. the process of gaining yOUR release from the current hostage situation may not be what you might think it is. butt of course, most of US don't know, or care what a precarious/fatal situation we're in. for example; the insidious attempts by the felonious corepirate nazi execrable to block the suns' light, interfering with a requirement (sunlight) for us to stay healthy/alive. it's likely not good for yOUR health/memories 'else they'd be bragging about it? we're intending for the whoreabully deceptive (they'll do ANYTHING for a bit more monIE/power) felons to give up/fail even further, in attempting to control the 'weather', as well as a # of other things/events.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=weather+manipulation&btnG=Search
http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=video+cloud+spraying
dictator style micro management has never worked (for very long). it's an illness. tie that with life0cidal aggression & softwar gangster style bullying, & what do we have? a greed/fear/ego based recipe for disaster. meanwhile, you can help to stop the bleeding (loss of life & limb);
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/28/vermont.banning.bush.ap/index.html
the bleeding must be stopped before any healing can begin. jailing a couple of corepirate nazi hired goons would send a clear message to the rest of the world from US. any truthful look at the 'scorecard' would reveal that we are a society in decline/deep doo-doo, despite all of the scriptdead pr ?firm? generated drum beating & flag waving propaganda that we are constantly bombarded with. is it time to get real yet? please consider carefully ALL of yOUR other 'options'. the creators will prevail. as it has always been.
corepirate nazi execrable costs outweigh benefits
(Score:-)mynuts won, the king is a fink)
by ourselves on everyday 24/7
as there are no benefits, just more&more death/debt & disruption. fortunately there's an 'army' of light bringers, coming yOUR way. the little ones/innocents must/will be protected. after the big flash, ALL of yOUR imaginary 'borders' may blur a bit? for each of the creators' innocents harmed in any way, there is a debt that must/will be repaid by you/us, as the perpetrators/minions of unprecedented evile, will not be available. 'vote' with (what's left in) yOUR wallet, & by your behaviors. help bring an end to unprecedented evile's manifestation through yOUR owned felonious corepirate nazi glowbull warmongering execrable. some of US should consider ourselves somewhat fortunate to be among those scheduled to survive after the big flash/implementation of the creators' wwwildly popular planet/population rescue initiative/mandate. it's right in the manual, 'world without end', etc.... as we all ?know?, change is inevitable, & denying/ignoring gravity, logic, morality, etc..., is only possible, on a temporary basis. concern
The camera has already seen what may be ice, which was exposed when the soil was disturbed by the landing.
I have been wondering about this. I'm sure NASA would have taken into consideration that the retro rockets firing as it landed might melt ice and/or destroy signs of life. Right?
Hmmm, I thought they were going there to find a new source of oil.
Because there's no way to predict in advance what something that we have absolutely no experience with (life that is in no way like any form of life on Earth) would be like. As such, looking for radically different life is like looking for "anything" -- it's not very productive.
Ah... it seems to me, Doolittle... Sorry, I've drawn a blank. Hold it. I'll have it again in a minute. I forget so many things in here, so many things. Hold on, just a minute, let me think...
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Stop making excuses, we here on Earth want a high resolution COLOR image of the mars terrain. It is significant to most of us to have one. Take the big picture, run it through an algorithm to size it down to a couple hundred kilobytes (like photoshop does with it's algorithm ) and send it back to Earth in 30 seconds. Just because it is insignificant to you or nasa's scientists doesn't mean it's not insignificant to others. This is 200 fucking 8, we should have beautiful color pictures. We don't want 1 in red, 1 in green and 1 in blue. We want a HIGH RESOLUTION picture. Do you understand? STOP MAKING EXCUSES THIS ISINT 1969. Your argument about wasting bandwith is bogus, we have plenty of time to take 1 NICE COLOR PICTURE AND SEND IT BACK. Who cares what or where the camera is pointing at? I don't. I just want a nice high resolution color picture from mars.
Whoever modded you informative is living in the stone age. Fuck you and the crackhead mods.
I know this is important to geek news and all, but Slashdot is treating the Phoenix like their firstborn.
"Phoenix started walking today!"
"Phoenix said his first word today!"
"Phoenix poopied like a big boy today!"
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Eh, I am not a big fan of the manned missions, but some relatively cheap robotic missions are hardly going to spell the difference between the end of the world and a happy utopia.
As for the "OMFG OIL!!!11!!!" comments, I would relax. We already have plenty of alternatives to oil, we just don't use them. The most obvious alternative to oil is expensive oil, as seen in the tar sands of Canada. Beyond that, you can merrily make synthetic oil, as Germany show way the hell back in WW2. Civilization is not going to collapse. At worst, prices climb, people switch to now relatively cheaper alternatives, and grumble about the price.
The US (you know, the home of NASA) in particular is pretty well isolated from the effects of rising oil costs. It is sitting on top of the world's largest supply of coal, meaning that power is not going to be a problem in this century providing CO2 emissions don't keep you up at night. It also has the worlds most productive farm land, meaning that it can merrily turn food into fuel without collapsing civilizations. Toss on top of this the merry fact that a half a dozen oil alternatives are waiting in the wings for the cost of oil to inch up just a little higher, and I sleep well at night.
There are good reasons to worry about energy. High energy prices suck, global warming is no fun, and not everywhere in the world can roll with the punches as easily as the industrialized west can. That said, it certainly is not to such a level that we need to stop tossing the few paltry bones at NASA that we currently do because "OMFG OIL!!!111!!"
I wonder if it's hard to crack? We have a couple of satellites there, but can they work it out? I wish we would soon get to the caves and the princesses, so all the effort would not have been a waste. We'll club them unconscious and take their women. I wonder if we already have blueprints for such a machine, maybe a bio-chemical one this time?
"recent findings which suggest that water on Mars may have been too salty for most known forms of life"
Genuine question - if the water is too salty, wouldn't organisms have evolved over the millenia that could survive in that environment?
--- Band: Joey Ultra
The data collected by the arm will be compared to recent findings which suggest that water on Mars may have been too salty for most known forms of life.
What about most unknown forms of life?
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
Thats kinda harsh. I consider polsci a science. As much as a social science can be considered "science" anyway.
I myself wouldve studied polsci if the powers that be wouldve let me become one. Alas... my parents thought it was "unproductive" (and one of them IS a polsci master) and managed to convince me of it.
Now that im in the field of IT, with very good results, i might add, consider that is just about as productive as any other work that does not include surfing in the pacific ocean at day, and smoking diverse herbal products at night.
From that standpoint, i hold a violent grudge against any social science graduates: fsking lazy bunch, you should be suffering just like the rest of us!
NO SIG
Yeah, it's probably kind of harsh.
The problem is that reading five really good books (on political science) is a lot worse than a good political science degree, but a lot better than a bad political science degree. That isn't quite so true when you get outside of the humanities (or really, in psychology and history and economics), so really, outside the sociological humanities.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.