I'm a firm believer that this planet will one of war and strife until something comes to unify us against something foreign. But that's jsut my Americanism speaking.
In grade school we hated our neighboring town. We would light bags of dog doo on their steps and thorw eggs and whatnot. But when I went to high school, our towns were combined into a single high school. Soon we were best friends with our previous year's enemies.
Instead, we waged "war" on other, larger cities. Ones with high schools of their own. Yet, when it came time to root for a national sports team, they became our best friends in a new "war" against the rival state's team.
Nations war against each other in the more traditional sense, but whenever something larger than a national boundary comes into play these nations become allied. This thing can be a religeon or a formal alliance, but this in turn creates a new enemy. Or does creating the new enemy bring about this alliance?
We will live on a planet of war until we are unified against aliens, or we die. At lest that is how I see it.
If Jupiter was swapped with, oh let's say, Mars, this solar system would look very different. First off, the earth wouldn't have formed in the first place. Instead our matter would be in that big fat Jupiter mass somewhere. So would a lot, if not all, of that asteroid belt.
I don't know enough to take into effect the "hot gas giant" thingy, but I do know that having a gas giant anywheres close to the Earth means the dust that coalesced into us would instead have been sucked into the giant.
I have always been of the opinion that single celled life is common in the universe. If we find bacteria (live or dead) on Mars I'll say "Yup, I thought so." We know that single celled life on Earth came about fairly soon after things calmed a bit, but it it took billions of years for those single celled organisms to join forces Voltron style and start the inevitable progression towards a sentient species.
I'm also of the opinion that this planet is the only one in the galaxy that has interesting life on it, as in more than a single cell. I know that many of you will think a single cell can be interesting, and I agree it can be. But when compared to a multicelled beast, I say one is interesting and the other isn't, by comparison. My reasoning here is the classic "If they were out there, we would know it." If they were out there, in a few thousand years the galaxy would be filled with colonies.
If we find anything bigger than a cell I'll call it fake.
Finaly someone said Thief. That is what I was thinking as soon as I read this blurb on the front page.
That is definitely a game that involves religion and actually integrates it very well into the storyline. Of course they can't call the different types "chrisianity" or "pagan" directly. As said earlier, the only religion you can poke fun at is christianity. The other ones get too grumpy.
But future missions could include sensors to analyse the ammonia to determine if it has a biological or volcanic origin. Lava deposited on to the surface, or released underground, could produce the gas.
But, so far, no active volcanic hotspots have been detected on the planet by the many spacecraft currently in orbit.
So, as we can see, there are MANY things that could put amonia on Mars, but none of them happen on Mars. We haven't found active volcanoes, comet impacts, or anything of the type.
What we haven't been able to detect, and thus rule out, is life in the form of bacteria. So it is the most likely cause in my book.
It must be full of "alloys" that our scanners can't analyze if it is from someplace we haven't been before. And of course alloy refers to the same subset of materials that thing refers to.
If we can expect Star Trek to teach us anything this is one of the <laugh>Prime Directives</laugh> that must be true.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm a firm believer that this planet will one of war and strife until something comes to unify us against something foreign. But that's jsut my Americanism speaking.
In grade school we hated our neighboring town. We would light bags of dog doo on their steps and thorw eggs and whatnot. But when I went to high school, our towns were combined into a single high school. Soon we were best friends with our previous year's enemies.
Instead, we waged "war" on other, larger cities. Ones with high schools of their own. Yet, when it came time to root for a national sports team, they became our best friends in a new "war" against the rival state's team.
Nations war against each other in the more traditional sense, but whenever something larger than a national boundary comes into play these nations become allied. This thing can be a religeon or a formal alliance, but this in turn creates a new enemy. Or does creating the new enemy bring about this alliance?
We will live on a planet of war until we are unified against aliens, or we die. At lest that is how I see it.
I think of the answer in this way:
If Jupiter was swapped with, oh let's say, Mars, this solar system would look very different. First off, the earth wouldn't have formed in the first place. Instead our matter would be in that big fat Jupiter mass somewhere. So would a lot, if not all, of that asteroid belt.
I don't know enough to take into effect the "hot gas giant" thingy, but I do know that having a gas giant anywheres close to the Earth means the dust that coalesced into us would instead have been sucked into the giant.
If we were examining a solar system exactly like ours, even with a civilization on it looking for us, what would we find with our current technology?
We would see the Sun, we would see Jupiter, and if the cosmic winds were in our favor we would see Saturn. But our precious Earth would not be seen.
However, the SETI program would see the Earth because it looks for emissions of a civilization and not just the planet's cosmic interactions.
I have always been of the opinion that single celled life is common in the universe. If we find bacteria (live or dead) on Mars I'll say "Yup, I thought so." We know that single celled life on Earth came about fairly soon after things calmed a bit, but it it took billions of years for those single celled organisms to join forces Voltron style and start the inevitable progression towards a sentient species.
I'm also of the opinion that this planet is the only one in the galaxy that has interesting life on it, as in more than a single cell. I know that many of you will think a single cell can be interesting, and I agree it can be. But when compared to a multicelled beast, I say one is interesting and the other isn't, by comparison. My reasoning here is the classic "If they were out there, we would know it." If they were out there, in a few thousand years the galaxy would be filled with colonies.
If we find anything bigger than a cell I'll call it fake.
Finaly someone said Thief. That is what I was thinking as soon as I read this blurb on the front page. That is definitely a game that involves religion and actually integrates it very well into the storyline. Of course they can't call the different types "chrisianity" or "pagan" directly. As said earlier, the only religion you can poke fun at is christianity. The other ones get too grumpy.
So, as we can see, there are MANY things that could put amonia on Mars, but none of them happen on Mars. We haven't found active volcanoes, comet impacts, or anything of the type.
What we haven't been able to detect, and thus rule out, is life in the form of bacteria. So it is the most likely cause in my book.
"There are no known ways for ammonia to be present in the Martian atmosphere that do not involve life"
But then the article continues on to say that it could be due to volcanic activity.
Since when did volcanoes count as life?
Scientific American is one of the best magazines an intellectual could subscribe to. Or even better, have as a gift!
I'm lucky enough to have a ever-renewing subscription to SciAm from the Mother-in-law.
Natinal Geographic is another favorite of mine for many reasons, the most important being the nice pictures.
It must be full of "alloys" that our scanners can't analyze if it is from someplace we haven't been before.
And of course alloy refers to the same subset of materials that thing refers to.
If we can expect Star Trek to teach us anything this is one of the <laugh>Prime Directives</laugh> that must be true.