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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.

4 of 48 comments (clear)

  1. Effects on Martian atmosphere by TWX · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm curious as to what effects, if any, were measurable in the Martian atmosphere. Science fiction authors have speculated on the possibility of continually crashing comets into Mars as a way of increasing the water content and thickening the atmosphere of the planet. In some ways it's far-fetched, but on the other hand it's probably the cheapest way to add water to Mars..

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    1. Re:Effects on Martian atmosphere by wierd_w · · Score: 4, Informative

      MAVEN detected large spectrometry spikes for several metallic elements, and several non-metallic ones as well, which persisted for hours after the comet passed by.

      Hang on, I will dig up a source.

      http://www.universetoday.com/1...

      Bam. There you go.

    2. Re:Effects on Martian atmosphere by wierd_w · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Enlighten me-- what feature of your professed "reality" did I miss?

      Oort cloud objects are so far away, that it takes them literally millions of years for them to reach our part of the solar system after they get nudged from their orbits by passing stars perturbing their orbits.

      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 to accomplish on human timetables. It took 70 years for voyager to reach the heliopause, AFTER it was gravitationally accellerated by several gas giants. The voyager probe was pretty small too, in comparison to what would need to be sent to the oort cloud to commence a mission of the magnitude the OP suggests. Getting something that heavy out that far before it's mission creators die of old age is a pretty significant bump. That's why I covered that bit by saying it would require, at the very least, a radical improvement in thruster technology.

      Once out there though, all it would take is slow, but constant thrust on an object to dislodge its orbit. There would be considerable time for these objects to pick up momentum from their inward plunge. Again, a radiative heater aimed at the surface of the comet at strategic points, controlled by a computer guidance system, would allow for the comet to be steered into the appropriate entry window for mars collision.

      It would just take a very, very, very long time. Last I checked, "Very long time" != "Can't be done".

      Then we come to the latter point I made-- objects in the asteroid belt between mars and jupiter. Objects in this area are much easier to get to, and could realistically be sent on collision courses with mars regularly with a fleet of automated vehicles. Ion thrusters are more than adequate for this latter kind of planetary engineering. Objects in the asteroid belt range from dust particles to things the size of mountains, to those the size of small moons. You dont need nor want the collossally huge ones. You dont want to destroy the target planet with a massive collision, after all. Sending objects the size of dump trucks or so to mars using controlled, vectored ion engine thrust over long timetables of several years is perfectly plausible.

      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.

      No, calling me a "Space nutter" or other ad-hominem does not absolve you of this obligation.

    3. Re:Effects on Martian atmosphere by wierd_w · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The indian mars orbiter, a vehicle with a lander module, and designed for interplanetary flight, cost less to manufacture and launch than the sandra bullock movie Gravity.

      Source
      http://money.cnn.com/2014/09/2...

      So, there's the cost of a suitable vehicle. About 74 million dollars.

      Then we have the designer microbe end. Most designer microbes are intended for biofuel production, using fully synthetic biological pathways, designed by humans.
      http://www.hindawi.com/journal...

      Other sources of interest are the biodegredation of toxic agents:
      http://www.nature.com/nchembio...

      And of course, Plastics.
      http://garj.org/garjm/pdf/2013...

      Feel free to order some of those researcher's samples!

      Perhaps you would want some that are sporting a fully 100% human created genome?
      http://www.jcvi.org/cms/press/...

      Microbes are tenacious things. Once cultured in the lab, and loaded into a delivery system, sending them to venus would cost about 80 million dollars.

      Cost of R&D of modifying a suitable sulfur cycle microbe for venusian atmospheric conditions would cost around 100 to 200 million.

      So, for around the 300 million dollar mark, we could be initiating the end of the hellish environment on venus-- OR-- we could pay for a few military airplanes.

      You are a delusional moron.