NASA announces discovery of sand on Mars....

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08 Dec 2012, 4:39 pm

What a great compliment to all that water they've found on Mars. Maybe they'll find a nice beach next, great for tourism.

Whats next? Pondscum?

TallyMan
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08 Dec 2012, 4:44 pm

TornadoEvil wrote:

What a great compliment to all that water they've found on Mars. Maybe they'll find a nice beach next, great for tourism.

Whats next? Pondscum?

Pondscum would be a fantastic discovery... it would imply organic life.

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Inuyasha
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08 Dec 2012, 4:46 pm

TallyMan wrote:

TornadoEvil wrote:

What a great compliment to all that water they've found on Mars. Maybe they'll find a nice beach next, great for tourism.

Whats next? Pondscum?

Pondscum would be a fantastic discovery... it would imply organic life.

Correct, assuming the organic life isn't of Earth origin.

ruveyn
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11 Dec 2012, 4:45 pm

Inuyasha wrote:

TallyMan wrote:

TornadoEvil wrote:

What a great compliment to all that water they've found on Mars. Maybe they'll find a nice beach next, great for tourism.

Whats next? Pondscum?

Pondscum would be a fantastic discovery... it would imply organic life.

Correct, assuming the organic life isn't of Earth origin.

1. Very few probes have actually made it to the surface of Mars.
2. In all cases of U.S. probes, great pains were taken to see that no microbes were aboard the space craft that sent them. NASA and its contracting parties go to a great deal of pain sterilizing their payloads.

ruveyn

Feralucce
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12 Dec 2012, 12:25 pm

Sand...

The announcement wasn't that they found sand, but that they have completed the initial test of the scientific lab on the rover and that the "Rocknest" Material is pretty much what they were expecting it to be. A sandy soil with a high incident of chemical interaction involving sulfur compounds and numerous dioxides.

The point of the announcement was that they found what they expected.

The implication is that discovery of life on Mars would require certain components that (on Earth) are rarely found in sandy environments... to paraphrase one of the exobiologists who has commented on it - "Sand is not the best place to look for life"...

Further, the rover has discovered extensive dune structures in the FOV of the camera. This changes our understanding of the meteorological systems at work. Previously, it was thought that there was no sustained winds on the planet (or they were rare), but dunes imply the opposite.

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Toy_Soldier
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12 Dec 2012, 2:15 pm

ruveyn wrote:

The suspense is over. NASA announced that probe Curiosity discovered sand on Mars...

How many billions of dollars did it cost to discover that.

ruveyn

But we can at least make a small descriptive correction. The angry red planet is now the sandy red planet. This is science after all. Infinately patient, one small word at a time.

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12 Dec 2012, 3:47 pm

Toy_Soldier wrote:

This is science after all. Infinately patient, one small word at a time.

So would "chronicles" be too long a word? Should I give up hope? :cry:

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16 Dec 2012, 4:18 am

MrXxx wrote:

Toy_Soldier wrote:

This is science after all. Infinately patient, one small word at a time.

So would "chronicles" be too long a word? Should I give up hope? :cry:

Are we really going to go grammar and spelling nazi? (or did I misinterpret your last comment?)

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16 Dec 2012, 11:48 am

If there isn't life on Mars now (of any type), then it would be best to dig under the surface to see if there are fossils of creatures -- after all, if it is dead, it may not have always been that way. The only problem is how to go about digging. It's considerably more difficult to drill and find intact fossils than it is to just collect things from the surface and near-surface.

Here's hoping for a dig, though!

ruveyn
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16 Dec 2012, 3:40 pm

matchalatte wrote:

MrXxx
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16 Dec 2012, 3:48 pm

Feralucce wrote:

MrXxx wrote:

Toy_Soldier wrote:

This is science after all. Infinately patient, one small word at a time.

So would "chronicles" be too long a word? Should I give up hope? :cry:

Are we really going to go grammar and spelling nazi? (or did I misinterpret your last comment?)

You've completely lost me.

It's a reference to The Martian Chronicles. Both in honor of Ray Bradbury's recent death, and a question as to whether "chronicles" would qualify as one of the small words Feraluce referenced. A satirical hope that they might find actual "Martian Chronicles" on Mars.

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16 Dec 2012, 5:14 pm

Then I completely misinterpreted it. Don't worry.

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ruveyn
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16 Dec 2012, 5:26 pm

MrXxx wrote:

It's a reference to The Martian Chronicles. Both in honor of Ray Bradbury's recent death, and a question as to whether "chronicles" would qualify as one of the small words Feraluce referenced. A satirical hope that they might find actual "Martian Chronicles" on Mars.

Fat chance of that. Mars is a dead and dry sh*t hole.

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MrXxx
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16 Dec 2012, 7:36 pm

ruveyn wrote:

MrXxx wrote:

Fat chance of that. Mars is a dead and dry sh*t hole.

ruveyn

So....

Ray was wrong? :cry:

Or did you just commit heresy?

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16 Dec 2012, 8:38 pm

ruveyn wrote:

The suspense is over. NASA announced that probe Curiosity discovered sand on Mars...

How many billions of dollars did it cost to discover that.

ruveyn

I thought this was funny

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16 Dec 2012, 11:28 pm

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