New Mars Forums

It certainly is very interesting that those distant probes are 'misbehaving'. Their behaviour is at least partially the reason for the Asimov quotation in my signature. As soon as I saw the quote, I imagined the guys at NASA peering at the Pioneer data and saying: "That's funny .."
    And, you never know, the tiny discrepancy could be the start of something big in our understanding of what makes space-time tick (excuse the pun).   

    Hi CM.
    Your idea about the energy contained in the solar system, particularly the Sun, is something I'd never considered before. If it were true, though, wouldn't it affect other small bodies in the solar system? Almost all observable natural bodies are much more massive than the Pioneer probes, I realise, but most of them have been tracked orbiting the Sun over many years and any small difference between gravitational theory and practice would surely have been magnified by this repetition and, therefore, easily observed. And wouldn't it be more noticeable in the inner solar system, closer to the main energy supply, than out past Pluto?  I've no idea, of course .. just mulling over your hypothesis is all I'm doing.
                                                     
    You referred to the perception that General Relativity holds good for "the scale of the universe at large" but is that necessarily true?
    We've had so much trouble explaining why galaxies don't tear themselves apart, rotating as fast at their peripheries as they do, that we've had to come up with mysterious dark matter to supply the extra gravity. Sounds like a 'patch up' job in the physics department to me!   :laugh:
    Couldn't it be that we really don't know quite as much about gravity as we think we do? And, if so, mightn't this persistent little anomaly with our deep space probes be telling us something very profound?
    I'm glad the Europeans are investigating this so thoroughly and I'm hoping for a really historic "That's funny .." moment!
                                             

Yes, indeed. The pace of change is extraordinary these days.
    Easily fast enough to cause confusion in some people's minds between 'e-VBLI' and the better known 'e-VLBI'!! (Sorry.)          

    Interestingly enough, at the age you mention - about 11 or 12 - I was scouring the local library in south London looking for science fiction novels. I found a series of fictional works by someone called Hugh Walters, with titles like 'Mission to Mercury', 'Destination Mars', and 'Journey to Jupiter'.
    Even then, the seeds had somehow been sown!   

Hi SpaceNut.
    Your point is well taken. At the risk of boring you and others who have heard me spout this stuff before, Earth's climatic history is much more varied than most people give it credit for. Technically, we're in an ice-age, which is broadly defined as any period during which a permanent ice cap exists at either pole.
    Ice-ages are relatively transient things, in geological time frames. For most of Earth's history, there have been no ice caps at the poles. So, to have one polar cap is relatively rare; to have ice caps at both poles at the same time is even rarer!
    They've found the remains of dinosaurs in polar regions which today are frozen barren places, subjected to long dark polar nights. While these finds reflect a degree of physiological diversity and adaptability in dinosaurs we hadn't suspected up until quite recently, that and other evidence tells us Earth's poles were once far less forbidding than they are today.
    This brings us to your thoughts on where the present-day extremophile organisms near the poles came from. Your conjecture makes good sense to me. I think it quite likely that such microbes have been there, gradually adapting to the cold, since more clement times.
    And I agree that it would be interesting to do DNA analyses to try to determine their origins.
                                             

Hi Julius.
    I agree with your summary of how life's development, if any, may have progressed on early Mars. There are many unanswered questions, though, as to how long the climate remained amenable to life and how often more benign conditions may have returned, for limited periods, later in the piece. This kind of research is one of my main interests.
    But we need to factor in impact transfer of crustal material between the inner planets, too. I believe viable bacteria have been transferred from Earth to Mars, and vice versa, throughout the last 3.5 billion years at least. Such transfer has been added to in recent decades by the arrival on Mars of unsterilised probes from the Soviet Union and incompletely sterilised ones from America and the ESA.
    The inner rocky planets are not quarantined from one another.
                                       

"Ultraviolent."
                                 !!!   :laugh:

    Nice twist of a word to suit the occasion.
    Interesting article too.

And another thing ... !
    I've noticed Josh putting inverted commas around the word "insurgents" and Stu has gone to some lengths to point out the kinds of words used by Western journalists to describe Islamic extremists.
    I would like to add my two cents worth here as well.

   The ABC and SBS T.V. networks here in Australia have taken to calling the terrorists anything but terrorists and murderers, which I agree with Stu is what they really are. We now get the softer euphemisms like 'insurgents', 'rebels', hostage takers', 'fighters', 'militants', etc.
    These terms carry with them the implicit and almost subliminal message that somehow the terrorists have some kind of legitimate cause for which they're fighting. They haven't, of course, but we Australians are being fed a monotonous diet of subtle misinformation to that effect (I don't know if it goes on to the same extent in other countries).
    But why? I can't fathom what SBS or the ABC is hoping to achieve by backing the wrong side. Even assuming you hate America or American foreign policy, even assuming you disapproved of the Iraq war, even if you have a dozen alternative histories you might have preferred to see happen, where is the percentage now in undermining the Coalition forces? Could it possibly be that the people running these two Australian T.V. networks actually wish for the liberation of Iraq to fail, for the forces of militant Islamic extremists to succeed in derailing the process of democratisation? Can they possibly be so determined to damage Western liberal democracy that they would aid and abet the cause of Islamofascism to achieve that goal?
    Hmmm. In this case, I have to say that even I DonGetIt!
                                                         :bars:

Rik:-

And Cindy:-

    Just thought I'd let you guys know, I laughed out loud at that little exchange between you! Just beautiful!!   :laugh: 

    Great photo, too. Thanks for the laugh and the picture.   

Cindy:-

    I agree with this sentiment wholeheartedly - well chosen words. The censored parts of the video are quite enough for me to be able to get a glimmering of what those poor men must have gone through.
    As I've said, I have no intention of listening to terrified men pleading piteously for their lives and then watching as they're slaughtered without mercy. There's such a thing as too much information.

    Thank you, Stu, for your typically descriptive post about your feelings in all this. I don't think it's any secret that you are very well regarded here at New Mars, not only for your excellent writing but for your obvious intelligence and good nature.
    In view of this, I was almost relieved to find that your opinions and mine, with regard to the whole Islamofascist problem, are in close agreement. 'Relieved' sounds like the wrong word in this context, of course, since it seems incongruous to be relieved about anything in the face of such a burgeoning calamity. 
    Only a relatively few people at New Mars seem to see the present world situation in quite the same way as I (we) see it. To me, it appears self-evident that a socio-religious virus has infected the world, in the form of extremist Islam. I've been trying to say that this problem is not an academic one and playing the blame game won't make it go away. Whether you imagine capitalism is the culprit (it isn't) or that America is to blame for everything (it isn't), or whether you want to sit down and beat your own breast just because you're a Westerner and we're all guilty in the West (we're not), will make no difference. The terrorists don't care.
    Stu, you've suggested it's way past time for the main body of Islam thoroughly to denounce the murderers in its midst. I certainly agree with that and I know others here have expressed the same opinion. It doesn't look like it's going to happen, though; if it were ever going to, it should have happened by now.
    I'm like you in another way, too. I wake up every morning and turn on the T.V. with more than a little trepidation. I've been fearing the same kind of news you mentioned - a 'dirty' bomb in Washington DC, mains water biologically contaminated in London, maybe something even worse ... .
    I don't know what can be done about it either and I fear you're right about a potential religious war, which is probably what these psychopaths want from us. Taking the war to them seems to be the only option open to us and that's why I have supported the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq - a sometimes difficult path to take around these parts!
    Anyhow, thanks for a great post!
                                                   

A very sad day, indeed, Josh.
    I don't envy your having watched this sick barbarity - I couldn't have looked at it myself.
                                               

    I very much understand your attitude, MarsDog; there are times when I'm overtaken by similar emotions of revenge. I don't believe we should do the same to the relatives of these savages, though.
    Situations like these only make me all the more determined that we should do whatever it takes to hunt down and execute terrorists, wherever they may be. I can't begin to tell you how I feel about these ignorant monsters, most of whom know nothing except the Koran and mindless religious hatred. The thought of ordinary peaceful men dying so horribly and so unnecessarily at the hands of these swine is just too much to bear.
                                             :bars2:

Thanks Cindy. Glad to see the MERS are receiving their more than justified recognition as probably the most successful  space probes of all time.
                                               :up:

    There's an interesting article http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2004/oc … .html]HERE which indicates that water has altered virtually all the rocks examined by the rovers so far. The evidence points to at least some of the rocks having been wet more than once, too, and more investigations are ongoing to determine just how much water may have been involved.
    I just hope Spirit's mobility can be maintained long enough to answer some of the questions raised by all this. I don't like the sound of all this arthritis creeping into the wheels and joints etc.   

That was a damned fine rant, Cindy!

    And, as a recognised ranter from way back, I feel I'm in a pretty good position to say that with some considerable authority. The fact is, I agree with every word and couldn't have ranted it better myself!
                                                 :rant:    [    ]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROBS !!!!!!!

                                 :band:           

    Hope you've enjoyed the first half of your life ... !
    (I'm approaching the half-way mark myself.)

    I second Rik's thanks for all you've done to make New Mars the best Mars board this side of the galactic "Great Wall". Long may you prosper!

[P.S. A belated "Happy Birthday" to those I've neglected to congratulate lately. I get distracted occasionally.  :bars:  ]

Hmmm.
    Maybe I have been overestimating the MSL's capabilities or intended range somewhat. But the chances of it being "trapped" in some of the chaotic terrain RobS mentions must surely be greater in Mariner Valley than the chances at, say, Meridiani.
    Not that I have anything against setting it down in Marineris; in fact, I think it would be a great spot for science and I'm sure it must be possible to find relatively safe landing ellipses there. After all, it's a fairly big valley .. !