This deal they sent off to Mars to look for past life... (Page 4/6)
blackrams FEB 24, 09:03 AM

quote
Originally posted by rinselberg:

Mars indeed, although it could be remarked that those photos are from the Mars Curiosity mission, which landed on Mars on August 6, 2012.

What just landed is the Mars Perseverance mission.




While true, (based on my limited search) NASA hasn't released much in the way of Perseverance photos. Most of what's shown from Perseverance are artist's conceptions and illustrations. Only a few Perseverance photos are out there now. I thought what I posted was much more enlightening based on what's available but, you can feel free to correct me as you wish. I know you get a kick out of that.

Rams

[This message has been edited by blackrams (edited 02-24-2021).]

Rickady88GT FEB 24, 11:41 AM

quote
Originally posted by sourmash:

Nasa.gov?



Sure they show a few pictures but as cool as that is, I was looking for discussions and outside the box theories.
williegoat FEB 24, 11:50 AM

quote
Originally posted by rinselberg:

Mars indeed, although it could be remarked that those photos are from the Mars Curiosity mission, which landed on Mars on August 6, 2012.

What just landed is the Mars Perseverance mission.



What? Did they build a new WalMart up there since the last mission? It's Mars. It's rocks. Red rocks. Kind of like Sedona, but without the wealthy neo-hippies.
maryjane FEB 24, 12:20 PM

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Originally posted by cliffw:

C'mon man.

Where is the forum justice warrior who can post a picture of a Fiero on Mars ? It exists somewhere in the archives.


I don't think so. IIRC, there was a thread several years back about it wherein CliffP said that photo and the original thread was lost during a rare glitch in one of the server updates or archiving.

IF it exists, it will be in 'archive' of GFC, which is where the original discussion took place.
rinselberg FEB 24, 01:27 PM

quote
Originally posted by rinselberg:
Mars indeed, although it could be remarked that those photos are from the Mars Curiosity mission, which landed on Mars on August 6, 2012.

What just landed is the Mars Perseverance mission.


I'd like to correct the record. The message (quoted immediately above) where I distinguished between the Mars Curiosity and Mars Perseverance missions was not a correction. It was an add-on or a "supplemental."
blackrams FEB 24, 08:27 PM
There are now some pics from Perseverance available now.

A cool 360 panoramic view put together by NASA engineers is kind of cool.

Rams

[This message has been edited by blackrams (edited 02-24-2021).]

rinselberg MAR 20, 08:18 AM
Scrolling back to message #11 there was a "discussion within a discussion" about why Mars has become mostly an arid desert, with its remaining water almost entirely sequestered in polar ice caps and as a barely detectable trace of water vapor in the scant Martian atmosphere.

The commonly accepted explanation has been that Mars once had a lot of water, but most of the water molecules were splintered into hydrogen and oxygen atoms by the energy of the solar wind and so bled away into outer space.

A newly published research paper, however, posits that much of the water that Mars once had--perhaps even as much of 99 percent of it--is still there. The water has become chemically bound and so "locked up" within Martian rocks, trapped within the chemistry of minerals and salt compounds.

If you don't frequent the New York Times online, you can probably view this article as a "freebie":

"The Water on Mars Vanished. This Might Be Where It Went."

quote
Mars once had rivers, lakes and seas. Although the planet is now desert dry, scientists say most of the water is still there, just locked up in rocks.

Kenneth Chang for the New York Times; March 19, 2021.
https://www.nytimes.com/202...s-water-missing.html

Or:

"Mars: Vast amount of water may be locked up on planet"
Paul Rincon for BBC News; March 17, 2021.
https://www.bbc.com/news/sc...environment-56400227

"Mars might be hiding most of its old water underground, scientists say"

quote
Massive amounts of ancient Martian water may have hydrated the planet’s crust

Joey Roulette for The Verge; March 16, 2021.
https://www.theverge.com/20...ian-researchers-nasa

The research paper itself, is, as you'd expect, somewhat "drier" reading, but it's freely available online in all of its glory. Here's the Abstract paragraph:

quote
Geological evidence shows that ancient Mars had large volumes of liquid water. Models of past hydrogen escape to space, calibrated with observations of the current escape rate, cannot explain the present-day D/H [Deuterium/Hydrogen] isotope ratio. We simulate volcanic degassing, atmospheric escape, and crustal hydration on Mars, incorporating observational constraints from spacecraft, rovers and meteorites. We find ancient water volumes equivalent to a 100- to 1500-meter global layer are simultaneously compatible with the geological evidence, loss rate estimates, and D/H measurements. In our model, the volume of water participating in the hydrological cycle decreased by 40 to 95% over the Noachian period (~3.7 to 4.1 billion years ago), reaching present-day values by ~3.0 billion years ago. Between 30 and 99% of Martian water was sequestered by crustal hydration, demonstrating that irreversible chemical weathering can increase the aridity of terrestrial planets.


"Long-term drying of Mars by sequestration of ocean-scale volumes of water in the crust"
E L Scheller et al; Science; March 16, 2021.
https://science.sciencemag....science.abc7717.full

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 03-20-2021).]

maryjane MAR 20, 08:33 AM
I would not expect to find 'life' on "a large percent of planets and bodies in space'. Space is just too hostile a place for most of the bodies to support any kind of life as we currently recognize life.
OTOH, I don't for a minute believe that Earth is the only place where life exists in the universe.
blackrams MAR 20, 07:58 PM
Mars Perseverance Sol 26: Left Mastcam-Z Camera
NASA's Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image using its Left Mastcam-Z camera. Mastcam-Z is a pair of cameras located high on the rover's mast.

This image was acquired on Mar. 18, 2021 (Sol 26) at the local mean solar time of 11:39:31.
rinselberg MAR 21, 08:19 PM

quote
Originally posted by maryjane:
I would not expect to find 'life' on "a large percent of planets and bodies in space'. Space is just too hostile a place for most of the bodies to support any kind of life as we currently recognize life. OTOH, I don't for a minute believe that Earth is the only place where life exists in the universe.


There's speculation about the possibility of microbial or other primitive life on Enceladus, one of the many moons that orbit Saturn. It's billed on the NASA website as "The Ocean Moon."
https://solarsystem.nasa.go...i/science/enceladus/

Titan comes up in these discussions. Saturn's largest moon, with an earth-like terrain and lakes of liquid methane. I think they say it "snows" frozen methane. It's got a thick, methane-rich atmosphere.

I remember a NASA scientist speculating that there could be single-celled organisms living in these methane lakes. He said the cells would be very large--like sheets of letter-size stationary. That's because in these very cold temperatures the chemical reactions of cellular metabolism would be running in "slow motion." The cells would have to be very large in area to compensate.

Saw that on TV some years ago.

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 03-21-2021).]