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Apollo 17 Soil Matches Ancient Earth's Ocean Ridges In Water Content

Posted by timothy on from the pure-lunacy dept.

StartsWithABang writes: They say that one of the most exciting phrases to hear in science is not "eureka!" but "that's funny," and the Apollo 17 astronauts, just over 43 years ago, certainly got such a moment when they discovered orange soil just beneath the grey regiolith. What turned out to be volcanic glass with tin inclusions had another surprise: olivine deposits that showed signs that they contained significant amounts of water inclusions when they were baked, at about ~1200 parts-per-million. This matches the water levels in Earth's upper mantle along ocean ridges, providing further evidence for the giant impact hypothesis and a common origin for the Earth and Moon.

78 comments

  1. Further proof by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Further proof they were actually on earth! Of course it matches what's just below the earth's regolith.

    1. Re:Further proof by jfdavis668 · · Score: 0

      Yes. Richard Nixon did a fantastic job convincing the world covering up the Moon landing conspiracy . Unfortunately he didn't do such a good job covering up an office break in.

    2. Re:Further proof by MagickalMyst · · Score: 1

      Nixon had nothing to do with it. He was just a dumb politician. Countries have intelligence agencies for a reason.

      --
      Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
    3. Re:Further proof by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's actually proof that the moon is made of orange cheese

    4. Re:Further proof by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yeah, but it's the powdered cheese. Like that stuff in the boxed pasta. Yuck.

    5. Re:Further proof by Runaway1956 · · Score: 1

      Yes, of course they were on earth. The aliens who stole the moon from the earth had to come to the earth to get the material for the moon!

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    6. Re:Further proof by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Nixon's accomplishments while in office are over looked because of the Watergate scandal. He oversaw the creation of the EPA, opened diplomatic relations with China, enforced desegregation of Southern schools, withdrew US military forces out of Vietnam and signed the Paris Peace accords, and initiated détente with the Soviet Union in the wake of his diplomacy with China which lead to the SALT I and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. As far as Presidents go he got more accomplished in his truncated Presidency than Presidents with 8 year terms ever accomplish. Not saying he should have not resigned but I don't think you can overlook his accomplishments along with his failures. Any recent President in the same type of scandal would do every thing in their power to fight impeachment proceedings and bring the government to a standstill while doing it. And after the political carnage the President would resign.

    7. Re:Further proof by TWX · · Score: 1

      I like Kraft Cheese and Macaroni! Shut your damn mouth!

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    8. Re:Further proof by I'm+just+joshin · · Score: 1

      It's the cheesiest!

    9. Re:Further proof by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      The break ins were due to a political party and reelection campaign and had nothing to do with official government intelligence agencies.

    10. Re:Further proof by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Democrats today ignore Nixon because he was Republican. Republicans today ignore Nixon because he was too liberal and made compromises.

    11. Re:Further proof by cavreader · · Score: 1

      I don't think it really matters what political party Nixon was in. The democrats and republicans back in the 50's, 60's, and 70's and even further back in time did not always share the same views that the modern day parties do. In some instances the roles of the major political parties were completely opposite of what the parties support today. And no matter how fucked up our politicians and their radical supporters are today it doesn't even come close to the madness that took place in the 1920's. The government was able to get voter buy in to enact prohibition. They might as well tried to prohibit people from breathing. The strongest supporters of that nonsense were religious hardliners who took it upon themselves to impose their version of morality on the country. It took a fucking Constitutional Amendment to fix to get the booze flowing legally again! And while this idiocy was getting all the attention the governments economic policies sent the US into the Great Depression. Things might be a little askew today but it is still a hell of a lot better than things were back in the day.

    12. Re:Further proof by Jack+Griffin · · Score: 1

      He oversaw the creation of the EPA, opened diplomatic relations with China, enforced desegregation of Southern schools, withdrew US military forces out of Vietnam and signed the Paris Peace accords, and initiated détente with the Soviet Union in the wake of his diplomacy with China which lead to the SALT I and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

      Isn't it funny how much politics has shifted so far right that even the Dems in 2015 are further right than Nixon era Republicans?

    13. Re:Further proof by dl_sledding · · Score: 1

      Alcohol: the most abused drug in the US today... the one that has the most social impact and consequences of all drugs. And it's legal. Meanwhile, other, less impactive drugs, are either illegal or next to it.

      The US is a truly fucked up country when it comes to chemical addictions and social norms.

    14. Re:Further proof by stoatwblr · · Score: 1

      "Meanwhile, other, less impactive drugs, are either illegal or next to it."

      If you check your history, you'll find that the first of those drugs to be made illegal was one that was generally believed to only be used by immigrant farm workers and the unstated primary reason for the ban was to keep newly minted "G-men" in jobs.

      In other words. Narco-gangs created the need for the FBI and the FBI needed the narco gangs to continue existing in order to justify staying in operation.

    15. Re:Further proof by stoatwblr · · Score: 1

      You're forgetting the primary reason for ignoring Nixon: He was corrupt and provably so.

      Whatever else he achieved, his political corruption(*) cost the USA (and the world) 40 years of viable nuclear research when he shut down Oak Ridge's MSR program. We (the developed world) could be more-or-less off carbon and giving a real helping hand kickstarting developing countries' economies (not to mention not needing to prop up nasty dictatorships/kingdoms around the world to ensure continued access to cheap but polluting energy), without needing to have places like Yucca Mountain (whose geology is unsuitable for the proposed task but the reality is you only need to sequester spent conventional fuel for 300 years before it's approachable enough to safely re-refine)

      If you want to solve the world's population problem the answer is simple: Make people better off.
      Poor people have more kids. Even moderately well-off people in poor countries have more kids, explicitly stating "Otherwise there will be noone to look after use in our old age"

      (*) There are many forms of corruption. Anything that's done or not done because it will influence voters, vs being for the country's long-term good(**) is political corruption.

      (**) Constantly going to war is not in any country's long-term good. It may keep people in jobs and temporarily increase security but world history shows that empires with a history of aggression by conquest eventually face a reckoning and the more aggressive they were, the more likely it is the repercussions will result in them ceasing to exist, not least because their economies were usually geared around expansion which abruptly stopped.

      Other commentators are correct in that modern USA dems and reps are far to the right of anything in past history. This was a trend that started in the 1960s and was consummated by Ronald Reagan. The home of "liberty for all" now has pervasive corporatism and statism at its core, with fewer individual liberties than many of the so-called "repressive" countries it disparages.

    16. Re:Further proof by cavreader · · Score: 1

      Alcohol, in one form or another, has been a part of human civilization going back to the glory days of the Roman empire and even going back as far as Egypt 5000 years ago. Trying to legislate it's demise is idiotic. My point was that religious hardliners were able to push such a law on society at large. Today's religious hardliners do not come close to wielding that type of influence today. They have been trying to overturn abortion law since 1972 and while there have been restrictions put into place they still have not had abortion totally outlawed.

    17. Re:Further proof by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.rawstory.com/2015/12/affluenza-texas-teen-ethan-couch-detained-in-mexico/comments/#disqus

      Grow up: my post had NOTHING to do with religion, so don't try to skew the conversation.

      You have a very lame argument: "It's been like this, like, FOREVER, so why try to change it???"

      Slavery has ALSO been a part of human civilization going back to Egypt 5000 years ago... but we were able to legislate it's demise, were we not?

    18. Re:Further proof by cavreader · · Score: 1

      Equating the history of alcohol with the history of slavery is a straw man argument. People abuse everything. Alcohol, legal and illegal drugs, food, caffeine, tobacco, and even sugar. Should all these things also be legislated away to make sure no one is harmed? Just how far are you willing to go in building the nanny state? Get back to me when you can count to 10 with your shoes on. .

    19. Re:Further proof by dl_sledding · · Score: 1

      You want to talk about straw man? And you offer sugar, food, and caffeine? I specifically used slavery BECAUSE it was so far and away more heinous, and it proved my point perfectly!

      BTW: "A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument which was not advanced by that opponent." Your argument was that since alcohol has been around since ancient times, we wouldn't be able to legislate it out of existence. I countered, using the fact (and your own fucking words, mind you) that slavery has also been around since ancient times, but we were indeed able to legislate it out. The facts that I did not include (incorrectly thinking that you were of normal intelligence and would naturally infer them), such as the fact that slavery had a huge impact on big business, and it's demise would be detrimental to that profit, would make it even less likely to do away with, but we were STILL able to. This was not a straw-man, since I directly countered the arguments that you presented, again, using your exact words.

      But OK, to use YOUR examples, how many people do you know who have gotten hopped up on sugar, Starbucks, and Big Macs, and then killed people because they were so impaired that they couldn't drive?

      Jesus Christ, you are a complete and utter moron...

      Alcohol is a drug, pure and simple. My point is that it's a drug that is ACCEPTED, even though it's physiological and societal impact is much more violent and detrimental than other (illegal) drugs. Period.

  2. Right by MagickalMyst · · Score: 3, Funny

    FTA: "it’s the same concentration of water as rocks found in Earth’s interior! In other words, if you ever doubted that the rocks from the Moon and the rocks from the Earth came from the same place..."

    Yep, the Nevada desert. Thanks Stanley!

    --
    Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
    1. Re:Right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Trump was right!

  3. Rare Earth Hypothesis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The more we learn about the Earth and the more we study Mars, the moon or measure exo-planets or their solar systems ...

    The more and more unusual Earth seems to become. Especially with the Earth having a giant moon.

    1. Re:Rare Earth Hypothesis by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      It doesn't really matter......imagine there is only a .00001% chance of a star having a planet like earth. That means there are still billions of stars with planets like earth, just because there are so many stars, and so many galaxies.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:Rare Earth Hypothesis by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 2

      The odds are much lower than that. Anything near the galactic center is sterile (and that's where most stars are). Anything in an old galaxy has probably already been baked by at least one nearby star going bang. Anything from a first-generation galaxy isn't going to have much in the way of heavy elements. Anything around a star that is too big or too small isn't going to cut it. Anything that doesn't have sufficient liquid water to allow for plate tectonics (high-pressure steam lubricates the junctions of the plates, same as fracking does) isn't going to be able to take significant chunks of CO2 and turn them into limestone (CaCO3) so you'll get an atmosphere like Venus. Same problem with planets that are too cold for ice to melt. The "Goldilocks orbit" eliminates binaries, etc. Any planets with intelligent life on them either have already, or are in the process of, destroying themselves. It's far more likely that their descendants will be the same as ours will be - intelligent machines. So future survival will depend on who has the best battle bots.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    3. Re:Rare Earth Hypothesis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course Earthy is the unique/unusual beast in all of this. We have vast amounts of life here. Other planets have gases and minerals and maybe some odd form of micro-organisms able to live in extremely harsh environments. If we weren't that unique we'd be finding other signs of life much more easily.

      There is other life out there, that much I'm 100% positive of. The universe is just much to large for us to be the only place that hit the lottery for life to evolve from basic single cell organisms to the state it has.

    4. Re:Rare Earth Hypothesis by Runaway1956 · · Score: 1

      Giant moon? What did they do with our mon-sized moon?

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    5. Re:Rare Earth Hypothesis by Runaway1956 · · Score: 1

      And that leads me to the question: why does life have to resemble life as we know it, here on earth? When people come up with these odds, they presume that life must depend on water. What if life need not depend on water? Life - what IS life?

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    6. Re:Rare Earth Hypothesis by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 2

      Life - what IS life?

      Life is a monosyllabic morpheme consisting of a fronting diphthong followed by a labio-dental voiceless fricative.

      Seriously, you're right. Yes, there could be plenty of life out. The reason we look for life, as we know it, is that it's impossible to find life as we don't know it because we don't know what we're looking for.

      So it's quite possible that our kind of life is rare but other kinds are not. But since we don't know how to find that, it's sort of a moot point.

    7. Re:Rare Earth Hypothesis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's not as bad as you think.

      Anything in an old galaxy has probably already been baked by at least one nearby star going bang. Anything from a first-generation galaxy isn't going to have much in the way of heavy elements.

      Most galaxies are probably old, first generation galaxies. Galaxy formation started very soon after the universe cooled enough, quite likely nucleating on dark matter clumps. If by "going bang" you just mean supernova, then a neighboring system has to be within a parsec or two to be baked by it, and the Milky Way is about 20 kiloparsecs across. If you're talking about a gamma ray burst from a hypernova, then yes, they have a much longer lethal range, but are only emitted in a very narrow angle along the original axis of the exploding star. Either way, that greatly reduces the risk away from "probably" (as existence proof, we're still here, but maybe we're just lucky -- OTOH we can see relatively young supernova remnants less than 250 pc away (Vela and Geminga, for examples).

      Talking about deficiencies in heavy elements, I think you mean first-generation stars, rather than stars formed from clouds ejected by super (or hyper) novae. Our sun is at least a second-generation star. Our Milky Way galaxy, while perhaps technically not first generation (it probably formed as an aggregation of smaller globular and elliptical galaxies) is still estimated at 13.2 billion years old, just shy of the age of the universe by 0.2 billion.

      The "Goldilocks orbit" eliminates binaries, etc.

      No, it doesn't. Alpha Centauri A and B both have stable-orbit zones (out to about 2AU) which include their Goldilocks zones (about 1 AU, give or take, depending on which star you're talking about). Certainly many close binaries will not (unless they're really, really close, like Tatooine), and various others depending on the stellar masses. But yes, binaries can have Goldilocks orbits that are stable.

    8. Re:Rare Earth Hypothesis by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 2

      One of the interesting properties is that around the freezing point, ice expands, making it less dense than liquid water. This prevents the seas from freezing solid right down to the bottom. Water's also a pretty good solvent. And the expansion of water in cracks helps break rocks into little pieces. All this has benefits for life.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    9. Re: Rare Earth Hypothesis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Odds of planet being sufficiently earth-like: 1 in 10^99. Maximum number of attempts: 10^23.

    10. Re:Rare Earth Hypothesis by JoeMerchant · · Score: 1

      Doom, gloom, and lack of vision. Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen organic molecules aren't the only way to reverse entropy (aka life). We're close to demonstrating an alternative with silicon, lithium and conductive metals, and there are others - maybe not in this galaxy, but more than likely, yes, somewhere within just a few light years is something living, far stranger than ocean vent communities or other extremophiles that incubated on the same planet as us.

    11. Re:Rare Earth Hypothesis by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

      Water is one of the simplest, most abundant things in the universe. Maybe life could use something else, but why would it when there's water everywhere? Even in our own solar system there's tons of moons and dwarf planets with water (including in liquid form internally), and even Mars with its extreme environment and lack of air has some occasional running water on the surface. Water does not seem to be the limiting factor for life.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    12. Re:Rare Earth Hypothesis by mikael · · Score: 2

      Water is the "unviversal solvent". It dissolves and mixes with just about anything; salts, acids, alkalines, ions. Some things don't mix like oils and fats, but that makes them useful as well. It also has a strong heat carrying capacity making it useful as a cooling fluid and it isn't combustible which is another advantage.
      Chemically, it's formed from hydrogen and oxygen, both of which are found in stars. (also Nitrogen and Carbon through the CNO sequence of atomic transmutation).

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    13. Re:Rare Earth Hypothesis by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Life does not reverse overall entropy. Just locally, by using energy from an outside source whose entropy is increasing (think sun vs. plants).

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    14. Re:Rare Earth Hypothesis by JoeMerchant · · Score: 1

      Life does not reverse overall entropy. Just locally, by using energy from an outside source whose entropy is increasing (think sun vs. plants).

      True enough, but the whole tendency toward increasing complexity thing is a lot harder to explain...

    15. Re:Rare Earth Hypothesis by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Nevertheless, the overall complexity of the entire system is reduced.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    16. Re:Rare Earth Hypothesis by stoatwblr · · Score: 1

      "Anything from a first-generation galaxy isn't going to have much in the way of heavy elements"

      Given that a number of stars in our own galaxy have been shown to be over 10 billion years old, what's to say a first generation galaxy hasn't matured into something like ours over time?

      Fossil records show that life showed up on earth more-or-less as soon as the surface was cool enough and solid enough to hold it - it showed up almost immediately after the Theia event (which would have reset everything on the planet) and was certainly present in the oldest known surviving rocks - which predate the late heavy bombardment.

      If (proto)life or traces of it is found on any other planet in our system that will blow the "rare" factor away - and there are enough stars in our own galactic outskirts to pretty much guarantee millions of instances of some form of life at the stated odds, let alone looking to other galaxies.

      40 years ago we thought planets were likely to be rare. Now we know that virtually every star out there has some (there are likely to be more planets than stars). As it's one of the more efficent ways of increasing entropy, life is likely to spring into existence regularly and be obliterated just as regularly. The question is how many times has it managed to get as far as allowing sentience(*) and how many times has it gone away again too?

      (*) Our descendants (if they exist) are likely to be oxygen starved apes. It doesn't take much to make this planet uninhabitable for our species or anything else massing over 50kg. An anoxic oceanic event would do it and geologically those go hand in hand with spiking CO2 levels. Ironically, anoxic events are very likely to have created most of the oilfields we tap into today.

    17. Re:Rare Earth Hypothesis by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      If (proto)life or traces of it is found on any other planet in our system that will blow the "rare" factor away

      Not at all. There's been over 100 meteors from Mars found on earth. There's no reason life couldn't start on planet, then contaminate others even if life didn't start there.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    18. Re:Rare Earth Hypothesis by stoatwblr · · Score: 1

      This is the basis of panspermia theory.

      Even 50 years ago it was known that if you take the ingredients of primeval earth (as in the gas makeup of the early orange planet) and subject them to electrical discharges (lightning), you'll end up with a hodge-podge of organic compounds. This was done in gas jars over a short period.

      When you expand that over an entire planet and thousands/millions of years it shouldn't be surprising that some of those organics will assemble into more complex forms - it's clear that current complex cells contain components from earlier standalone life with mitochondria and chloroplasts being the standout examples (mitochondria has its own (degraded) DNA and mitochonrdrians still reproduce as independent items within a cell)

      If Panspermia is accurate then the kinds of life we see on various planets will be of similar chemistry to here and probably of the same chirality. If the independent origin theory is accurate then they should vary wildly, or at least be of randomly varying chirality for carbon-based forms.

      Incidentally there are 6 possible components for DNA, but life on earth only uses 4(*). It's entirely possible that DNA-based life on other planet may use them all or a slightly different set of 4.

      (*) Artificial life has been assembled in labs using all 6.

  4. Pardon Me, but... by Anna+Merikin · · Score: 0

    They say that one of the most exciting phrases to hear in science is not "eureka!" but "that's funny."

    Who is the "they" who said this? It is the most ignorant thing I've heard today! It is the difference, to paraphrase Twain, between a lightning bug and a lightning bolt. "That's funny" is a significant observation; Eureka! is a celebration, a dance, to an personal intellectual achievement. One cannot sit still in such moments, one shouts, screams, runs in circles, speaks in tongues, laughs uncontrollably and like that.

    "That's funny" is simply observational. There is no celebration, just collection of information which may spark curiosity. That curiosity, if acted upon, can become understanding, which, after further work, can lead to a Eureka!, but they are in no way comparable.

    Perhaps not everybody has had a Eureka! moment, but most people have had a "that's funny," so they may not see the difference.

    Euekas are orgasms of the mind.

    1. Re:Pardon Me, but... by krashnburn200 · · Score: 1

      Oh, I see what happened, he said "to hear" and you heard "to experience"

    2. Re:Pardon Me, but... by Anna+Merikin · · Score: 1

      Exactly. Pardon me...again.

      Over and out.

    3. Re:Pardon Me, but... by njnnja · · Score: 1

      The difference is that "Eureka!" marks the completion of an answer, which, while significant, is not as exciting (to a scientist) as *beginning* a journey of discovery. "That's funny" means something that we thought we know maybe isn't so, and therefore it is the start of a quest for more knowledge. To a scientist, that is when the excitement happens.

      Having said that, this seems to be tying up loose ends more than asking new questions, so I'm not sure how many scientists are saying "that's funny" to this discovery.

    4. Re:Pardon Me, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You left several letters out of words in your post.

      To answer your initial question: Isaac Asimov said it.

      Yes, a "eureka" may be more exciting for the scientist, but not for science. Typically a "eureka" moment is a revelation of supreme ignorance, not a way forward for the scientific community-at-large. Not always, but usually. Also, the "eureka" for a scientist may typically follow a "that's funny" that already occurred, setting the stage for the supposed "breakthrough" to happen.

    5. Re:Pardon Me, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I mostly agree.

      But I think you could argue that a "Eureka Moment" (EM) is tied to the understanding of something. The "That's Funny Moment" (TFM) is the realization that something you believed you understood was incorrect. One could argue that a EM indicates the end of a scientific persuit...ie: we now know how xyz functions. Which is definitly sometimes mindblowing. But the TFM, tends to indicate the start of a new scientific persuit. Instead of "we know the moon is made of gray dust", there is now a new mental drive to examine and explore why it is instead orange! Figuring out why it is orange (EM) may not actually be as exciting as the TFM when you realize it isn't gray dust. The unknown is more interesting than the known to most people. That is one of the reasons I bet you (and others) love science and learning in general, so much...to learn the unknown (even if it is just unknown to you!).

      I'm just saying it isn't completely rediculous to take that stance. But yes, I also agree the fact that so few actually have had a novel EM themselves. Although they have certaintly had numerous EM thoughout their lives when in school, etc. They may have been to simple mathematical concepts they struggled with for year. I had one in calc 2 of my BS studies. I had passed High School AP Calc, and BS Calc 1, but honestly didn't fully grasp the concepts and was only average (maybe below) in those classes. I was just regurgitating processes, patterns, and formulas presented to me. Then one day it clicked, and the stuggles of the previous semesters seemed silly given my knew awareness. Nothing new or novel other than my understanding of well known mathematical principles.

    6. Re:Pardon Me, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Issac Asimov. And he knew how to spell Eureka.

    7. Re:Pardon Me, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ann Dumbass?

    8. Re:Pardon Me, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Go back to writing intelligent design defenses, global warming FUD and manifestos about how you are smarter than all the autistic people you meet in a list of "intelligences" you compiled yourself.

    9. Re: Pardon Me, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One: Try having some guts to post as non-AC when you attempt to criticize someone. Heavy on the attempt.

      Two: You forgot to take your anti-asshole meds today. Might want to dose up, Sparky. That's not criticism -- it's observation.

      Cheers.

    10. Re:Pardon Me, but... by jc42 · · Score: 1

      Issac Asimov. And he knew how to spell Eureka.

      So he spelled it ""? ;-)

      Hmmm ... Yet again, /. messes up anything not in the English alphabet. Funny things is that the editing panel shows my reply correctly, with the (classical) Greek spelling of the word between the quotes. But the Preview just shows two adjacent quotes, with the Greek characters omitted.

      Sure would be nice if we could discuss "foreign" words, especially in spelling and etymology messages, and have them show up spelled correctly. ;-)

      I think I'll post this with the original Greek word there, and see what appears in the edit panel after it's been through the posting process ....

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    11. Re:Pardon Me, but... by jc42 · · Score: 1

      So he spelled it ""? ;-)

      Hmmm ... Yet again, /. messes up anything not in the English alphabet. Funny things is that the editing panel shows my reply correctly, with the (classical) Greek spelling of the word between the quotes. But the Preview just shows two adjacent quotes, with the Greek characters omitted.

      Sure would be nice if we could discuss "foreign" words, especially in spelling and etymology messages, and have them show up spelled correctly. ;-)

      I think I'll post this with the original Greek word there, and see what appears in the edit panel after it's been through the posting process ....

      Nope, while correct Greek survives the Preview process into further editing, it does seem to disappear entirely when you post it.

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    12. Re: Pardon Me, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, the irony of an AC posting "Try having some guts to post as non-AC when you attempt to criticize someone."

      And yes, the irony of me posting this as AC is not lost on me. Can't be arsed to log in.

    13. Re:Pardon Me, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm just saying it isn't completely rediculous to take that stance. But yes, I also agree the fact that so few actually have had a novel EM themselves. Although they have certaintly had numerous EM thoughout their lives when in school, etc. They may have been to simple mathematical concepts they struggled with for year. I had one in calc 2 of my BS studies. I had passed High School AP Calc, and BS Calc 1, but honestly didn't fully grasp the concepts and was only average (maybe below) in those classes. I was just regurgitating processes, patterns, and formulas presented to me. Then one day it clicked...

      EMs, are not the "why didn't I think of that" one feels in school. They are the moments of breakthrough where no one has gone before. In fact, they are "why didn't someone else think of that already?" feelings.

      Einstein kept telling the story of his "fifteen minutes on a tram in Vienna" when he thought up the special theory of relativity (now and then, of course, not continually) up to his death. That was the kind of EM the OP meant, I think.

    14. Re:Pardon Me, but... by mrsquid0 · · Score: 1

      > They say that one of the most exciting phrases to hear in science is not "eureka!" but "that's funny."

      Who is the "they" who said this?

      Isaac Asimov

      --
      Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
    15. Re:Pardon Me, but... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      It is either
      over: you expect the talk to continiou with an answer of partner
      or out: the talk is terminated

      'Over and out' happens only in bad movies.

      And remember to release the push to talk button, or in most cases you wont hear/receive any answer.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  5. Re:More disgusting Republican... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think most Republicans could get behind funding mental health treatment for you.

  6. Pro-Human Hype by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's arguable that all of this wouldn't have come to pass -- that we never would have learned any of this -- if we hadn't sent a human scientist to the Moon...that this is what's truly needed if we want to uncover the truths about the rest of the worlds in our Solar System: scientific exploration by a human who knows what they're looking for. Or more importantly, who recognizes something interesting when they see it, and who isn't afraid to kick up what might be lurking where a more autonomous mind might not think to look!

    This seems to be presenting an argument for more scientists (instead of just astronauts) and/or on-site human exploration instead of remote-controlled robots.

    However, the argument for both is weak. A regular astronaut and remote rover could spot orange soil also.

    In fact, a rover could have more "color" filters instead of be limited to the 3 ranges (cones) that human eyes have. There can be odd spectral variations that human eyes just can't detect, including the infra-red and ultraviolet range.

    And for the same money, bots can cover far more territory and linger in an interesting spot, if needed.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
    1. Re:Pro-Human Hype by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... and don't necessarily need to be retrieved.

  7. Re:More disgusting Republican... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Republicans" and "get behind funding anything other than pork" are not compatible.

  8. Fuck Forbes by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 2

    You foist another Forbes link upon us to tell us about a discovery that's 43 years old?

    Sheesh.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    1. Re:Fuck Forbes by Earl+The+Squirrel · · Score: 1

      And hide it behind a link that doesn't work without Ad Block turned off...

      Not News I'll look at...

    2. Re:Fuck Forbes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Link works with Addblock+ just fine, me thinks you never even tried to click on the link.

      and as for conspiracy's people, we know that the material the moon is made of material that originated from earth, the rocks are not from the Nevada desert.

      we did land on the moon, get over it people, you can even find satellite images of the lunar lander's on the surface of the moon.

      all this article shows is that the moon still has water from earth trapped among the soil.

      no life though, sterilized from radiation, but still water, and still detectable from soil samples collected 40+ years ago.

    3. Re:Fuck Forbes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Use uBlock Origin + anti-adblock-killer. It blocks ad blocker blockers.

      But you don't have to click on it though. StartWithABang is a known blogtroll. There's nothing newsworthy but regurgitated, dumbed-down clickbait.

    4. Re:Fuck Forbes by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      Link works with Addblock+ just fine, me thinks you never even tried to click on the link.

      Or maybe he doesn't use Adblock+.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  9. Re:More disgusting Republican... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Democrats" and "get behind funding anything other than pork" are not compatible.

    FTFY.

  10. regiolith? by LQ · · Score: 1

    Is that the same as "regolith"

    1. Re:regiolith? by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      No, it's not. Regiolith is regolith from Reggio.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  11. Cooled off in 6000 years by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    It is astounding how quickly it cooled off when it separated from the earth 6,000 years ago

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
    1. Re:Cooled off in 6000 years by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ba-dum-tish!

  12. Bring it back! by meadow · · Score: 1

    I say: Bring it back! Its time to reunite the long lost moon material back to our motherworld where it belongs!

  13. old way better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's much better when made the old fashioned way, with milk and real cheese, then baked in the oven. Kraft made with the powdered cheese product is a poor representation.

    1. Re:old way better by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Yes, but Kraft's is better when you need comfort food to eat in a dark corner along with a pint of Ben and Jerry's and a fifth of scotch while watching Titanic.

    2. Re:old way better by TWX · · Score: 1

      You had me up until Titanic. Never seen it.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  14. Well, we all know Ethan Siegel isn't a geologist - by RockDoctor · · Score: 1
    well I've known that as long as I've been seeing his attempts at science journalism. But does he actually have anything of interest in this article?

    I didn't actually know that "NASA/Arizona State University," had an online, high resolution "Digital Petrographic Slide Collection" ; not surprising. I'll dig into that more. Nice pictures. The fascinating corrosion textures on the surface of the glass grains really raise a lot of questions. Which Ethan doesn't notice. (OK - I'm biased - I was repairing a petrological microscope for the last couple of days. But the textures are obviously weird.) Perthite textures in what are described as glass grains also go completely unremarked, though that is probably the reason the photograph was taken in the first place.

    But these rocks (soils if you prefer) are interpreted as the results of fire fountains playing in lava eruptions of the lunar past. Which is great - except ... what drives fire fountains? The exsolution of volatiles and their concentration into the upper parts of magma chambers. And the amount of this material that Schmitt and Cernan found indicates that it's a rare circumstance producing a rare deposit.

    So, this tells us what about lunar igneous petrogenesis? That after considerable concentration, the low levels of volatiles (not just water) in lunar bulk material can be concentrated to levels similar to those in magmas on Earth.

    Which doesn't actually tell us very much that is new. Which is probably why the paper he references is from 2011 (and paywalled, with everything in the article coming from the abstract. Implying a lack of institutional access to one of the premier science journals of the world.

    What I'd like to know - and is completely unaddressed by the article, is just why these images are being re-processed and uploaded onto FLIKR or FACEBOOK !!! instead of there being a NASA image archive from which the originals (or their highest-available resolution scans) can be downloaded. That seems ... almost designed to fuel conspiracy theorists. But this appears to have escaped Mr BangsWhenItStops.

    Who is Ethan Siegel? Here we know him as TooLowAnOctaneRating. On his Frobs column he asserts he is "professor at Lewis & Clark" (assumed present tense, as no indication there of a change in tense), but http://college.lclark.edu/depa... doesn't list him. Odd that. Though he was a visiting professor there in 2010 (their search engine is down at the moment). Which is very much in the past tense, according to my calendar. What about his "NASA columnist" claim ... Ah, it seems he wrote for a kid's site called "The Space Place" ; again, past tense.

    So basically, he is, as his posting pattern already suggested, a jobbing blogger trying to earn a crust from clickbait adverts. Which is a profession, of sorts. But he certainly doesn't seem to be contributing to science any more.

    --
    Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"