NASA Schedules Briefing to Announce Significant Find on Mars...

NASA ^

[edmond246]

NASA hosts a news briefing at 1 p.m. EST, Wednesday, Dec. 6, to present new science results from the Mars Global Surveyor. The briefing will take place in the NASA Headquarters auditorium located at 300 E Street, S.W. in Washington and carried live on NASA Television and www.nasa.gov

[AndrewC]

Where are the clouds?

[burzum]

Where are the clouds?

There have been many images of clouds on Mars.

[woollyone]

found the 900 missing Hillary! FBI files?

[Quix]

. . . it was the absolute kook fringe groups that

FIRST, earliest

AND MOST ACCURATELY

Described who Hitler was and what he would become and do.

[RightWhale]

Life is far, far to complicated and information-laden to be an accident.

Your post was good up until this assertion. Why should complexity not be a natural state of nature? Wolfram showed that huge complexity can result from very simple rules. Plato said that harmonies, or resonances would occur in natural process at selected points and not inbetween, and evolution of species wasn't even thought of then. Whitehead said that you can have complexity without diversity, which amounts to the same statement.

That being said, NASA's emphasis on their Search for Life is totally bogus. They need to hire a philosopher.

[Calvin Locke]

Winds occasionally blow off the dust accumulations.

Art Bell had Jim Bell (Cornell prof, leader of the rovers' pancam team) on a week or so ago, and I was so disappointed
in his contradictory answers to separate, but related questions: Wind blows off the dust, but the atmosphere was
considered too thin to add a microphone to either/both of the rovers, etc.

[RightWhale]

I heard the interview. It seemed the dust was just as light when it was blown off the panels as it was when the wind put it there in the first place.

[djf]

I'm not sure I buy into the wind theory either. I'm almost inclined to think it's some sort of electrostatic effect, where a negative charge is building up and repelling the dust.

[ADemocratNoMore]

Lots of negative references to Hoagie here. Without getting into a debate on his whole career, I think it is quite relevant to look at his first paper on liquid water on Mars, published 7/19/2000. http://www.enterprisemission.com/press-water.html

See also "Independent Analysis of Stain Distribution Pattern Confirms Key Aspect of Tidal Model of Mars"
http://www.enterprisemission.com/tides2.htm

[D Rider]

I thought that maybe they found my lost socks.

[AndrewC]

Then what is the big deal?

[zeugma]

. . . it was the absolute kook fringe groups that

FIRST, earliest

AND MOST ACCURATELY

Described who Hitler was and what he would become and do.

---

Yup. But the "kook fringe groups" still have to suffer derision for their apostasy.

Some times they are right, sometimes they absolutely are not.

I find it incredibly difficult to believe that NASA "lost" the hi-res video from all lunar landings.

it just strains all credulity to believe that they were that irresponsible. Not even Fedgov is dumb enough to lose the original video of the most important event in human history (besides those regarding Jesus of course).

 

[GOPJ]

Thanks for the ping.

[Quix]

I find it incredibly difficult to believe that NASA "lost" the hi-res video from all lunar landings.

it just strains all credulity to believe that they were that irresponsible. Not even Fedgov is dumb enough to lose the original video of the most important event in human history (besides those regarding Jesus of course).
= = = =

I rather much agree with you.

And, I think there's a better than 50/50 chance that we have bases on the moon, Mars etc. in cohort with an ET group or two. But who but the 'initiated' really knows, save God, ET's etc.?

[burzum]

Those clouds are formed in an atmosphere roughly 0.5% that atmospheric pressure of the Earth's atmosphere. This means they are not a significant volume of water and don't indicate large water formations on the planet. Liquid water cannot exist long on the surface of Mars because it will evaporate or else freeze and sublime due to the low atmospheric pressure. Ice can last a long time under the surface because obviously the pressure exerted on the ice is higher and degassing is more difficult. The same is true for liquid water (though the temperatures obviously must be higher).

What is significant about this discovery is that it is more evidence to confirm the theory that a significant volume of ice or water exists about 50 feet or more underground on Mars. Other pieces of evidence that have supported this conclusion are rampart craters (craters where the debris from a meteor impact fell like slush due to ice and water underground), radar imaging indicating water (especially with the recent radar images from Mars Express), and other older gullies observed. This discovery gives the latter much more credibility since it shows that many of these gullies are probably fairly new formations.

All this by itself is fairly boring (except for the possibility that life could exist in some isolated warm water areas underground). But it has been analyzed a little further and there is strong evidence that there was about 3.5 billion years ago a large northern liquid ocean and that the atmospheric pressure on mars was between 10% and 70% of the Earth's today. This dramatically increases the probability of finding life (extinct or living). It should be noted that about 3 billion years ago the planetary magnetic field on Mars failed which allowed the solar wind to strip the atmosphere (and hence all surface liquid water). If any life survived, it would be in isolated places.

[AndrewC]

What is significant about this discovery is that it is more evidence to confirm the theory that a significant volume of ice or water exists about 50 feet or more underground on Mars

It still seems to be overly trumpeted.

[Spirochete]

... his contradictory answers to separate, but related questions: Wind blows off the dust, but the atmosphere was considered too thin to add a microphone to either/both of the rovers, etc.

The Polar Lander *was* equipped with a microphone :)

[Spirochete]

This discovery gives the latter much more credibility since it shows that many of these gullies are probably fairly new formations.

Interesting that the streambeds and gullies have craters in them, meaning that they flowed during moist periods *before* cratering episodes.

OTOH, some gullies and riverbeds cut through small craters, meaning that the craters predate the streams that later cut through them.

[Calvin Locke]

Remind me again, was it the weight of the mic, or the wiring that caused it to crash? :)

I vaguely recall listening to Huygens drop to the surface of Titan, too.

[potlatch]

Thanks for the ping Dave