Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Orbiters Study Effect of Giant Comet-Caused Meteor Shower On Mars

Posted by samzenpus on from the sky-is-falling dept.

An anonymous reader writes According to observations made by NASA and ESA orbiters, the extremely close flyby of comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring to Mars was accompanied by a meteor shower larger than any seen on Earth. NASA said that dust from Comet Siding Spring vaporized high up in the Martian atmosphere, producing "an impressive meteor shower." An observer on Mars surface might have seen thousands of shooting stars per hour. "This historic event allowed us to observe the details of this fast-moving Oort Cloud comet in a way never before possible using our existing Mars missions," Jim Green, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division at the agency's Headquarters in Washington, said in the statement.

2 of 48 comments (clear)

  1. Wait, what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    I was told that we must have boots on Mars because only a person there can make the split-second decisions of what pictures to take of dead rocks?

  2. Re:Effects on Martian atmosphere by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    "Enlighten me-- what feature of your professed "reality" did I miss?
    [...childish sci-fi babbling removed...]
    Rather than rely on stellar interaction, a mission to purposefully send robot drones into the oort cloud is theoretically possible, but as I pointed out, would require either FTL or a radical improvement in thrust technology "

    The part where you invoke dozens of improbabilities and outright impossibilities?

    And it's not a "professed" reality (nice religious term there), it IS reality.

    " Last I checked, "Very long time" != "Can't be done"."

    It also absolves you of ever doing anything about it, except dream about it.

    "Since I am telling you how it COULD be done, and you are insisting that it cannot, "because orbital mechanics", the onus of proof is on you."

    Nope, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Waving sci-fi around while yelling about "could be"s is not good enough, sorry. That's a religion.

    No one's going anywhere, there won't be any robotic mining missions to the Oort cloud, no Mars colonies, no weekend cottages on the Moon, no jungle resorts on Venus either.

    Funny how Venus isn't part of the Space Nutter repertoire anymore, eh?

    Where's your blind trust in technology getting better and impossible physics breakthroughs when it's about Venus?

    Hmmm???

    Oh, and yes, I'm calling you a Space Nutter, and it's not an ad-hominem because
    1) I'm not saying your arguments are invalid because you're a Space Nutter
    2) I'm saying you're a Space Nutter because your arguments are invalid.

    Space Nutter!