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Water Ice On Mars
cathector sends along a story from SpaceWeather.com on the discovery of water ice on Mars.
"Scientists have figured out the mysterious white substance unearthed by NASA's Phoenix lander on Mars. It's frozen water. The breakthrough came last week when Phoenix's stereo camera caught the substance in the act of disappearing. Bathed in martian sunlight for four days, the white substance sublimated — i.e., it transformed from solid to gas without passing through the liquid state. This is how water behaves on Mars.... Some readers have asked, how do we know the white substance is not frozen CO2 (dry ice) instead of frozen water? Answer: Phoenix's landing site is too warm for dry ice. The average daily temperature is about -70 F while dry ice requires temperatures lower than about -109 F." The animated GIF showing the ice sublimating is pretty nice too.
In other news, NASA announced today that a manned mission to Mars is planned to retreive the newly found ice in time for the 2012 Kentucky Derby. NASA plans to upstage Woodford Reserve's famous $1000 Mint Julep at the race with its own $3,000,000 version of the traditional cocktail. While plans are still being firmed up, the beverage will reportedly come in a limited edition collector's glass.
It means we finally have a suitable accompaniment for Martian scotch.
You're absolutelly right, all we need now is some Martian Whisky and the social lives of any future human expedition is well and truly sorted out.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
News fails to take responsibility according to one internet poster.
More at 8.
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
Send your own fucking probe if you can't be bothered to subtract 32 and multiply by 4/9.
Were that I say, pancakes?
They would be better off sending their own fucking probe than subtracting 32 and multiplying by 4/9. I'm not sure what units those are, but certainly not Celsius.
Yep, Vodka.
Perhaps next mission they should take along some sugar. Put it out and see if it 'sublimates' as well.
Memo to all Enforcers:By order of the Council of Elders, anyone caught consuming the sweet, sweet bait near the robotic invader from the blue planet is to have his gelsacs summarily pierced.
Signed,
K'Breel
There's a perfect xkcd for my sig but I'm too lazy to look it up. sudo someone go find it.
> Hopefully they are right about it.
Of course they're right about it, they have solid photographic evidence.
The AC is thinking critically, while you appeal to authority. Which type gets to work at NASA?
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
You'd hope that after 300 or so years of chemistry we'd understand how to recognize water...
Long live imperial units! I say, if God had wanted us to use metric, He would have given us ten fingers! ...
oh, crap.
I'm the Devil the Windows users warned you about.