But at some point in Mars' distant past, much of that water disappeared, leaving behind polar ice caps and a complex geology.
Aren't ice caps made of water?
Yes, the permanent ice caps of Mars are water ice (the seasonal ice is primarily frozen carbon dioxide, aka "dry ice").
But, although they are miles thick, the Martian ice caps are just too small to contain all of the amount of water that early Mars is believed to have once had. The polar caps contain a small amount of it, but the question being addressed here is, what happened to the rest of it?
Although there are also aeolian features on Mars, wind doesn't carve the particular kinds of features in the Viking images that are the ones mostly attributed to water, e.g., http://solarviews.com/cap/mars...
Geologists argued for a long time, though, about whether the fluid that carved the features was actually water, or some other fluid. But now that we have ground truth measurements from the rovers, the case for water is pretty well established.
Do planetologists use the term "geology" when they're talking about another planet?
Technically, no, the proper term for the study of Mars planetary formation, mineral chemistry etc is areology.
It etymologically ought to be areology, but it turns out that having a different word for the geology of each planet was too cumbersome, so they are all lumped together as "Planetary geology."
There is a nice layer of atmosphere that has a comfortable temperature on... err above Venus. Why have cities when you can have floating cloud cities?:)
I should remind Slashdot readers that we already have a cometary probe planned, funded and soon to be launched I think: OSIRIS-rex. While I really like comets and would love to get samples back, we've (sort of) been there done that.
OSIRIS -REx is an asteroid sample retrieval mission. https://www.asteroidmission.or... Similar, but we would learn very different things from a comet sample.
...
(While we're dreaming, a submersible probe to Titan would also be cool.
No it isn't. The parity of both seven and eight is the same: Eight in binary = 1000, containing an odd number of 1s Seven in binary = 0111, also containing an odd number of 1s The set up should be "What goes pieces of nice, pieces of nine", as: Nine in binary = 1001, containing an even number of 1s
So I guess this is what you call a parody error?
It's a parody parroty parity error!
Let's all get together to make fun of it, and have a parody parroty parity error parody party..
...confirms that Canada ranks among the top three most costly countries for mobile wireless plans. Comparing the U.K, Italy, France, Australia, Japan, and the U.S....
As I see it, the phrase "among the top three" means: "third" (because surely if it was the most expensive or the second most they'd say that. First could, of course, also be labelled "among the top three," but you'd just call it first.) And there were six countries compared. So: Third of six is in the middle, not "some of the highest".
When I was I guess about 13, there was a partial solar eclipse. One of my classmates pointed it out to us. I'm not sure how long we gazed at it but it was minutes rather than seconds. It didn't seem to noticeably harm anyone. Maybe it's a question of age.
If the sun were very low on the horizon, you might be ok. (You can look at the sunset, although you'll see afterimages). Otherwise, no, not minutes.
"She had peeked several times, for about six seconds, when the sun was only partially covered by the moon."
Uh, note that's what she said she did. We don't actually know how long she looked at the sun; she almost certainly underplayed how stupid she was when she talked to the doctor, since people usually do.
No, the chart gave the average from 1981 to 2010, and also the the two standard deviation error bar. This is an example of how to do statistics right: compare to averages, show standard deviations, and link to the data.
And 1981 is not "a peak"-- in fact, if you look at the data (I assume you didn't), it is pretty much identical to 1979, 1980, 1982, or 1983.
The statement is clearly preemptive damage control. That said, given the track record of "first launches of new rocket systems" around the world, probably well warranted.
Yep. Turns out that a very good way to make a new vehicle is to just try it, see what goes wrong, and fix it.
This means that failures should be expected: they're part of the process. That's how you learn.
But the publicity and public outcry around a launch failure doesn't allow for the fact that failure is an important part of the process. So it's good to "preemptively" remind people of that beforehand.
And if it is, there's not one F'n thing that we can do about it. We don't have the tech to NOT burn fossil fuels.
But we do have the tech to use them much much more efficiently.
A lot is already being done. Solar power is being implemented on a large scale, for example.
My suggestion for what else to do would be to put some next-generation nuclear power plants into operations. We basically know the problems with nuclear power now; and it is possible to design better power plants; let's do it.
Try it, and food doesn't get to market, commerce goes to near-zero, people starve, etc. We _need_ the energy from fossil fuels, and whining about it just won't change that.
The fact that we can't (easily) drop fossil fuel use to zero doesn't mean that we can't reduce the use, and make wise choices about what applications we need fossil fuels for, and what we don't.
Wind and solar is cool, we should keep building it, and battery tech is getting better too. Will battery tech get to the point that it can replace the internal combustion engine? Maybe. If not, we then have to figure out how to deliver grid electricity to a car / truck / airplane / ship / etc. in motion.
Agree, all good ideas.
And if this warming is due instead to natural forces as some believe,
It's not. Really. We've been looking at the inputs and outputs very extensively, and with a very large amount of data (climate science actually is grounded in data), and there just isn't enough variation in natural inputs to account for the changes seen.
then we should be pouring a lot of effort into geo-engineering, which may be the only way to mitigate the temperature rise.
No, if our models of climate were so wrong that we can't even understand what causes warming now, it would be suicidal to mess around with the controls we don't understand.
If you wish to prove a point, claiming "I already did!'" is not evidence. Global warming is happening, but you must be consistent and not lie to convince others. 2017 arctic ice is within historical norms unless very, very careful selection of beginning and ending years to start at peaks (1972, 1981, 1996, 2008) and end in valleys (1985, 1995, 2007, 2013, 2016).
I agree with your points that it's important to be careful with data, but no, at the moment it looks like Arctic ice is significantly lower than historical norms. Here's the graph as of last month: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicen...
This is a problem that needs to be solved. Since copying content has become easy, how do the people who create content get paid? How do news organizations pay reporters to investigate stories?
More use of lighter than air craft. Blimps, zeppelins, etc.
We tried that. It didn't end well. It's a romantic idea but not a practical one for mass transportation. They have some niche uses but they aren't the answer you are looking for.
Partly true. But the serious problem with Zeppelins was weather: they are inherently large and slow, so storms absolutely kill them. Forget the Hindenburg: overwhelmingly, the cause of dirigible crashes was thunderstorms.
But in the 1930s we couldn't really predict weather, and we couldn't really look at what the weather was like far away. Today we have satellites and weather prediction. If there's a thunderstorm, we know about it. We don't have to fly the dirigibles through it because we didn't know it was there. So, the main cause of dirigible crashes is, today, a solvable problem.
Still-- today people really don't want to spend a few days crossing the Atlantic, and people expect their flights to take off whether or not it's raining: people won't take "oh, come back tomorrow, weather's bad" for a trip.
So, no, probably not mass transportation. You're right that they could be useful for other niches, though.
Yes, scientists are aware that some ice is floating. The particular article being discussed here, however, is about the ice sheet on Antarctica. Which is a continent, covered by ice over a mile thick.
(* footnote: some of the sea level rise is also due to thermal expansion of the water as it warms).
All scientific advances begin with scientists doing research. They don't always get their interpretations and predictions right. That's why there's always follow-up research.
What this says is that two scientists, making a new model that considers different things, have made a prediction that's different from those made by other scientists with other models. There's no observational evidence right now showing that one is right and the other is wrong.
It's certainly too soon to panic, but equally it's too soon to dismiss the possibility.
Yep. And if the article had phrased it that way, I wouldn't have called it sensationalist.
Personally, I live something like a couple hundred meters above sea level, and I have no intention of moving to a coast.
I plan on not living on the coast a hundred years from now, either.
Slashdot Mirror
But at some point in Mars' distant past, much of that water disappeared, leaving behind polar ice caps and a complex geology.
Aren't ice caps made of water?
Yes, the permanent ice caps of Mars are water ice (the seasonal ice is primarily frozen carbon dioxide, aka "dry ice").
But, although they are miles thick, the Martian ice caps are just too small to contain all of the amount of water that early Mars is believed to have once had. The polar caps contain a small amount of it, but the question being addressed here is, what happened to the rest of it?
Although I expect that this remark was intended to be some kind of humor, but in fact, it's accurate: Uranus is a planet composed mostly of water.
https://www.universetoday.com/19309/water-on-uranus/
Although there are also aeolian features on Mars, wind doesn't carve the particular kinds of features in the Viking images that are the ones mostly attributed to water, e.g., http://solarviews.com/cap/mars...
Geologists argued for a long time, though, about whether the fluid that carved the features was actually water, or some other fluid. But now that we have ground truth measurements from the rovers, the case for water is pretty well established.
Wow. Yet another post where I can't tell whether it's deadpan parody, or dead-on clueless.
Do planetologists use the term "geology" when they're talking about another planet?
Technically, no, the proper term for the study of Mars planetary formation, mineral chemistry etc is areology.
It etymologically ought to be areology, but it turns out that having a different word for the geology of each planet was too cumbersome, so they are all lumped together as "Planetary geology."
https://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov/research/research-topics-list/planetary-sciences/planetary-geology-and-geophysics
http://planetary-science.org/planetary-science-3/planetary-geology/
and geologists routinely use the term "Martian geology" and "geology of Mars"
https://mars.nasa.gov/programmissions/science/goal3/
http://planetary-science.org/mars-research/surface-geology-of-mars/
https://www.exploratorium.edu/video/martian-geology-101
https://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/geol212/lectures/01.html
There is a nice layer of atmosphere that has a comfortable temperature on... err above Venus. Why have cities when you can have floating cloud cities? :)
My thought exactly!
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20030022668.pdf
I should remind Slashdot readers that we already have a cometary probe planned, funded and soon to be launched I think: OSIRIS-rex. While I really like comets and would love to get samples back, we've (sort of) been there done that.
OSIRIS -REx is an asteroid sample retrieval mission. https://www.asteroidmission.or...
Similar, but we would learn very different things from a comet sample.
...
(While we're dreaming, a submersible probe to Titan would also be cool.
Yes!! Let's do it!
https://www.nasa.gov/content/t...
http://geology.com/articles/titan-submarine/
(full disclosure: ok, I worked on that one: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/...
By the way, ARE there any short wavelengths that would be transparent to the hydrocarbon seas of Titan? Otherwise, just sonar.)
Turns out that liquid methane and ethane are moderately transparent to radio frequency.
For those who want the direct link to the NASA release:
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-invests-in-concept-development-for-missions-to-comet-saturn-moon-titan
I don't know if there's a page for the comet sample return mission, but Dragonfly has a page (with video) here: http://dragonfly.jhuapl.edu/
While the comet mission is certainly worthy, Titan is is the most Earth-like body in the solar system, except for temperature.
Venus is the most Earth-like body in the solar system except for temperature.
But it turns out temperature is very important.
No it isn't. The parity of both seven and eight is the same:
Eight in binary = 1000, containing an odd number of 1s
Seven in binary = 0111, also containing an odd number of 1s
The set up should be "What goes pieces of nice, pieces of nine", as:
Nine in binary = 1001, containing an even number of 1s
So I guess this is what you call a parody error?
It's a parody parroty parity error!
Let's all get together to make fun of it, and have a parody parroty parity error parody party..
So, the summary says
As I see it, the phrase "among the top three" means: "third" (because surely if it was the most expensive or the second most they'd say that. First could, of course, also be labelled "among the top three," but you'd just call it first.) And there were six countries compared. So: Third of six is in the middle, not "some of the highest".
Uh, the article says that they located Russians buying three ads totaling about a dollar.
That's not really a problem.
also, logically, Russians meddling in a British elections would not be treason-- treason would have to be by citizens of the same country.
When I was I guess about 13, there was a partial solar eclipse. One of my classmates pointed it out to us. I'm not sure how long we gazed at it but it was minutes rather than seconds. It didn't seem to noticeably harm anyone. Maybe it's a question of age.
If the sun were very low on the horizon, you might be ok. (You can look at the sunset, although you'll see afterimages). Otherwise, no, not minutes.
Worth pointing out:
"She had peeked several times, for about six seconds, when the sun was only partially covered by the moon."
Uh, note that's what she said she did. We don't actually know how long she looked at the sun; she almost certainly underplayed how stupid she was when she talked to the doctor, since people usually do.
I notice that you say "the data in those graphs is atypical!" but you don't show any data yourself, or any evidence for your assertion whatsoever.
Bye.
No, the chart gave the average from 1981 to 2010, and also the the two standard deviation error bar. This is an example of how to do statistics right: compare to averages, show standard deviations, and link to the data.
And 1981 is not "a peak"-- in fact, if you look at the data (I assume you didn't), it is pretty much identical to 1979, 1980, 1982, or 1983.
The interactive version is here, allowing you to look at individual years: https://nsidc.org/arcticseaice...
The statement is clearly preemptive damage control. That said, given the track record of "first launches of new rocket systems" around the world, probably well warranted.
Yep. Turns out that a very good way to make a new vehicle is to just try it, see what goes wrong, and fix it.
This means that failures should be expected: they're part of the process. That's how you learn.
But the publicity and public outcry around a launch failure doesn't allow for the fact that failure is an important part of the process. So it's good to "preemptively" remind people of that beforehand.
And if it is, there's not one F'n thing that we can do about it. We don't have the tech to NOT burn fossil fuels.
But we do have the tech to use them much much more efficiently.
A lot is already being done. Solar power is being implemented on a large scale, for example.
My suggestion for what else to do would be to put some next-generation nuclear power plants into operations. We basically know the problems with nuclear power now; and it is possible to design better power plants; let's do it.
Try it, and food doesn't get to market, commerce goes to near-zero, people starve, etc. We _need_ the energy from fossil fuels, and whining about it just won't change that.
The fact that we can't (easily) drop fossil fuel use to zero doesn't mean that we can't reduce the use, and make wise choices about what applications we need fossil fuels for, and what we don't.
Wind and solar is cool, we should keep building it, and battery tech is getting better too. Will battery tech get to the point that it can replace the internal combustion engine? Maybe. If not, we then have to figure out how to deliver grid electricity to a car / truck / airplane / ship / etc. in motion.
Agree, all good ideas.
And if this warming is due instead to natural forces as some believe,
It's not. Really. We've been looking at the inputs and outputs very extensively, and with a very large amount of data (climate science actually is grounded in data), and there just isn't enough variation in natural inputs to account for the changes seen.
then we should be pouring a lot of effort into geo-engineering, which may be the only way to mitigate the temperature rise.
No, if our models of climate were so wrong that we can't even understand what causes warming now, it would be suicidal to mess around with the controls we don't understand.
If you wish to prove a point, claiming "I already did!'" is not evidence. Global warming is happening, but you must be consistent and not lie to convince others. 2017 arctic ice is within historical norms unless very, very careful selection of beginning and ending years to start at peaks (1972, 1981, 1996, 2008) and end in valleys (1985, 1995, 2007, 2013, 2016).
I agree with your points that it's important to be careful with data, but no, at the moment it looks like Arctic ice is significantly lower than historical norms. Here's the graph as of last month: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicen...
Interactive chart is here: https://nsidc.org/arcticseaice...
If you want total volume, and not coverage, the best data is from the NASA GRACE mission (measuring gravity). That mission is now over. But here's data: http://polarportal.dk/en/groen... , and here's a visualization through 2014: https://gracefo.jpl.nasa.gov/r...
This is a problem that needs to be solved. Since copying content has become easy, how do the people who create content get paid? How do news organizations pay reporters to investigate stories?
There are no easy solutions.
I would be curious about breed specifics and percentage difference if any or other genetic factors as some are waaaay smarter than others.
This is an important question. Dogs vary vastly in size, and in the size of their craniums.
Which dogs were measured?
They still can't outrun thunderstorms.
Indeed. You would either not fly in thunderstorms, or you would choose a route that doesn't fly through them.
But at least now we know where the thunderstorms are, and have moderately good predictions as to where they're going. In the 1930s they didn't.
They're inherently slow, wallowing creatures. They're only "efficient" because they're so incredibly slow compared to bicycles
Well, Hindenburg's top speed was 84 miles per hour, with a cruising speed of 76 mph. You'd be hard pressed to hit that on a bicycle.
http://www.airships.net/hinden...
...
More use of lighter than air craft. Blimps, zeppelins, etc.
We tried that. It didn't end well. It's a romantic idea but not a practical one for mass transportation. They have some niche uses but they aren't the answer you are looking for.
Partly true. But the serious problem with Zeppelins was weather: they are inherently large and slow, so storms absolutely kill them. Forget the Hindenburg: overwhelmingly, the cause of dirigible crashes was thunderstorms.
But in the 1930s we couldn't really predict weather, and we couldn't really look at what the weather was like far away. Today we have satellites and weather prediction. If there's a thunderstorm, we know about it. We don't have to fly the dirigibles through it because we didn't know it was there. So, the main cause of dirigible crashes is, today, a solvable problem.
Still-- today people really don't want to spend a few days crossing the Atlantic, and people expect their flights to take off whether or not it's raining: people won't take "oh, come back tomorrow, weather's bad" for a trip.
So, no, probably not mass transportation. You're right that they could be useful for other niches, though.
This was already discussed on a previous thread.
Yes, scientists are aware that some ice is floating. The particular article being discussed here, however, is about the ice sheet on Antarctica. Which is a continent, covered by ice over a mile thick.
(* footnote: some of the sea level rise is also due to thermal expansion of the water as it warms).
All scientific advances begin with scientists doing research. They don't always get their interpretations and predictions right. That's why there's always follow-up research.
What this says is that two scientists, making a new model that considers different things, have made a prediction that's different from those made by other scientists with other models. There's no observational evidence right now showing that one is right and the other is wrong.
It's certainly too soon to panic, but equally it's too soon to dismiss the possibility.
Yep. And if the article had phrased it that way, I wouldn't have called it sensationalist.
Personally, I live something like a couple hundred meters above sea level, and I have no intention of moving to a coast.
I plan on not living on the coast a hundred years from now, either.