Rovers on Mars

@farmerman,

Part of the problem is that no "science reporters" seem to be capable of looking at the total amount of data that these Rovers are kicking back. If we recall, the 2007 "Phoenix" lander made some discoveries regarding the chemistry of this large sunken planar area that , by its rock descriptions , shows an "earth like" pattern of evaporitic type deposits. I you recall, Phoenix found that the soil and mineralogy were "high pH" with lotsa alkaline (magnesium Ca etc) rocks and low amounts of Chlorides (or perchlorates as they are finding in the present surveys).
This suggests a water fille area that was around for a while (long enough to establish a stratigraphic column (of which we still dont have much of a clue)
My "model" is one of either an area of shallow seas that ere gradually being stripped away but not before a long period of presenxce)
SO, seeing the evidences of the MISS type sediments, is not a unexpexted extension of logic.
Now, IMHO a next step is some more sophisticated organic chemistry (looking for biological molecules, not methylene chloride or dichloretene-although these show a xhemical reaction "staircase" that shows that such chemistry , as seen on earth, was going on on Mars (not earth shaking but confirmatory evidence that chemistry bonds are universal)

I go back to the Phoenix data and some of the "Lists of Rocks" found on Mars wrt to the surface features (craters, plains, scarps etc).

We would expect to see whole families of different but relataed evaporitic chemicals occurring across the entire map of the Rover site-and this is sorta what were seeing. The solubilities of certain salts define where they will deposit along the "rings" of an ancient water body. Certain salts like gypsum or natrolite or others have low relative solubilities and will plop out along the edges of the old water body.
Into the center mass of the body will we see the really high solubility stuff like chloride and chlorate salts. (And pH's of soil will reflect that)
SO, I think the reason that JPL doesnt jump too far down the road of conclusions yet, is that they are following a "Trail" of evidence that is developed from aspects of similarity that these deposits and rocks are as compared to same ones on earth.

Its something that they are using the Atacama desert, The Gulf of Karabopugas, and Death Valley to gain insights

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From the MSL-Curiosity site at JPL for which i provided a link, i got the following portion of the transcript of their most recent video:

Quote:

Since its arrival in August 2012, Curiosity has driven nearly eleven kilometers from its landing site to the foot of Mount Sharp within Gale Crater. The first year was spent traversing through ancient streambeds and exploring Yellowknife Bay, the site of an ancient lake. That’s where Curiosity drilled samples from the lake floor to reveal mineral evidence of long-lived, fresh water. It also found carbon-containing organic molecules and nitrogen in a form usable to life. So if life ever were present on Mars, a site like Yellowknife Bay could sustain it.

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@Setanta,

I truly wonder who gets to name all of those Martian geographical places?

Furthermore, do the Russians and Chinese (in their respective languages) have these same names for them or are these just USA-ian names?

And, of course, is the rover putting down USA-ian flags claiming the land in the name of the king ...er..ah ... Prez?

Love it if they found gold there..or some other strategic metal.

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@Ragman,

In 1659, Christian Huygens identified the first albedo feature on Mars, which is a plateau in the low latitudes of the northern hemisphere, now called Syrtis Major. I don't know who named it, but i suspect it was Giovanni Schiaparelli, who started systematically naming the obvious albedo features of Mars beginning in the 1880s. He was an astronomer (a good and careful scientist) by profession, and a scholar of antiquities by avocation. So he gave the features he named names from ancient Hebrew, Greek and Roman myths.

Since then, as so many more features have been named, the more prosaic method of naming things for their discoverers or scientists whom those naming them wish to honor. Schiaparelli identified hydrological flow features, and gave them the name channels. Unfortunately, the Italian word for channels is canali, which lead to all manner of idiotic claims by English-language journalists. Schiaparelli never claimed that there were canals on Mars, but he didn't have to--there was hundreds of journalists prepared to make up wild stories. One of the most amazing features is a series of canyons which run for than 3000 miles just south of the equator. Schiaparelli's telescopes didn't give him enough resolution to recognize them as canyons, and if he didn't know what something was, he had the habit of saying "I don't know what that is." That was very disconcerting for the journalists, who wanted sensation. Mariner 9 orbited the planet in 1970-71 taking photos, and the feature was identified as a canyon system, and was named Valles Marineris after the mission which identified it. Melas Chasma (canyon) makes the Grand Canyon look like a ditch. It's cliffs to north and south are more than 20,000 feet high. It's about 120 miles wide, though, so if someone set you down blindfolded in the middle of the canyon, and took the blindfold off, you wouldn't know you were in a canyon--the cliffs would be below your visual horizon.

Most of Schiaparelli's names have been retained. Modern astronomers and members of mission teams have been honored with the names of features which have been identified and explored since Schiaparelli's day a century ago. The Curiosity rover is located in Gale Crater, named for an amateur astronomer from Sydney, NSW, Australia who was a contemporary of Schiaparelli. Schiaparelli was not certain what he was seeing, but he did name the "mountain" inside the crater Aeolis Mons. Aeolis was the ancient Greek name for what we would call northwest Turkey.

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Another nut job who is all concerned with keeping Mars "pristine":

Quote:

I think we need to understand Mars far better, and also life processes far better, before we can know if it would be a good thing to introduce modern Earth life to Mars, or what type of life would be best to introduce if we do ever do it. And until we know the answers there, the obvious thing is to do your paraterraforming on asteroids, or using material from asteroids to make Stanford torus–type habitats. And in case of Mars use Phobos and Deimos—all the time being careful not to introduce any life to the planet—until we know what the effects would be. Because life introduced to Mars even unintentionally because it leaks from your domes, or indeed as a result of a crash landing of your spacecraft, can never be removed if it starts to reproduce. It could do anything—make poisonous gases like hydrogen sulfide or methane, consume oxygen, have feedback effects that make Mars colder or drier, or in other ways work against what we want to do there. And it might generally mess up the planet before we know what is there.

I wish this wasn't the case. I wish humans could explore planets without causing any problems, as in the science fiction stories. But those are fiction, and in reality, we just don't have any way to sterilize humans and their habitats to keep planets free of introduced species of Earth life as you explore them—like the rabbits in Australia.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2015/10/26/can_we_terraform_a_portion_of_mars_by_enclosing_it_in_a_dome.html

unless there is some galactic warlord who is going to come down on us for "ruining" mars by changing it I say we try make Mars do what we want it to do. The worst we can do is make it uninhabitable, and it pretty much was that way when we found it, so **** it.

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

unless there is some galactic warlord who is going to come down on us for "ruining" mars by changing it I say we try make Mars do what we want it to do.

I don't think NASA is worried about alien warlords or microbes "punishing" us for altering Mars. I think the most realistic concern is that we might mess up our only chance to learn something which we might otherwise never be able to learn, ie the nature of non-terrestrial biology.

If there is biology on Mars, and it turns out to be fragile and our microbes get loose and drive it into extinction before we can get up there and study it, then we could lose our only opportunity to study a non-terrestrial organism.

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@rosborne979,

rosborne979 wrote:

hawkeye10 wrote:
unless there is some galactic warlord who is going to come down on us for "ruining" mars by changing it I say we try make Mars do what we want it to do.

I don't think NASA is worried about alien warlords or microbes "punishing" us for altering Mars. I think the most realistic concern is that we might mess up our only chance to learn something which we might otherwise never be able to learn, ie the nature of non-terrestrial biology.

If there is biology on Mars, and it turns out to be fragile and our microbes get loose and drive it into extinction before we can get up there and study it, then we could lose our only opportunity to study a non-terrestrial organism.

I have no interest in learning about a mostly dead or dead planet that I want to put to human use if that learning gets in the way of its use to humans. Why in the world would I give a **** what happened on it before humans? It was useless to humans before humans, the important thing to humans is its utility, or at least this should be the case. . We need to be able to prioritized here folks, if we cant do that we are done as a species.

Humans matter. What Mars was like when we found it does not matter hardly at all unless their is going to be some force out there that demand different, like a galactic warlord.

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You're wasting your time with Whackeye. He lives in a fantasy world which is governed by his desire to seem wise, cynical and well-informed. I have no reason to assume that he is wise or well-informed. No human effort is even close to colonizing Mars, and in view of the Martian gravity well, it is highly unlikely that there will be any commercial ventures there. There is no profit in mining strategic minerals, for example, if it's not cost effective to mine them and get them off the planet. It is also unlikely that humans will be spreading out over that planet in large numbers for a long time to come--probably not for centuries. There is time enough to make a thorough study of any alien biology which may exist. Whackeye really doesn't get the significance of the value of studying an alien biology, if we in fact find one.

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@Setanta,

Quote:

Whackeye really doesn't get the significance of the value of studying an alien biology, if we in fact find one.

I get it. What I dont get is this fastidiousness about keeping Mars pristine. Save the concept for if and when we find something worth studying. When did we loose the ability to prioritize? When did YOU lose the ability to prioritize?

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@hawkeye10,

You have zero understanding of our position with regard to Mars. Your comments are hilariously nonsensical, too.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

You're wasting your time with Whackeye. He lives in a fantasy world which is governed by his desire to seem wise, cynical and well-informed. I have no reason to assume that he is wise or well-informed. all before here is a statement on sets current emotional condition No human effort is even close to colonizing Mars, and in view of the Martian gravity well, it is highly unlikely that there will be any commercial ventures there OK but that is irrelevant because we are also taking about the "danger" of probes polluting the place, and the morality of sending humans there. This question of how much do we need to keep mars, perhaps a dead planet pure, matters right here right now. Are you too stupid to understand this? Maybe you are playing dumb because the truth is inconvenient. . There is no profit in mining strategic minerals, for example, if it's not cost effective to mine them and get them off the planet. It is also unlikely that humans will be spreading out over that planet in large numbers for a long time to come--probably not for centuries. ditto There is time enough to make a thorough study of any alien biology which may exist this is nothing to do with the subject. Whackeye really doesn't get the significance of the value of studying an alien biology, if we in fact find one. We have not talked about this so you have no way of knowing, and my knowledge level has no impact on the question of keeping mars pure. Which you should know if you are 10% as smart as you think you are. So why are you wasting our time Set? How come you are not talking about how far we should go to find out if mars is dead before we stop caring about polluting it with stuff from Earth? If the place is dead should we care? If so why? How far can we go to change planets that we go to? Why? There are a lot of places that you could have gone but instead with get overly emotional bullshit with a lot of stuff about some guy named Hawkeye. Explain yourself.

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@hawkeye10,

No, you're getting your panties in an hilarious twist about these things. It's your typical Chicken Little routine. Your lack of knowledge is precisely why you attempt to make yourself sound wise in matters about which you clearly know nothing. You were ranting about "priortize." What priorities are we in danger of violating by a reasonable caution in sending rovers to Mars? The phony baloney outrage you're venting here is actually based on our not knowing if Mars is "dead" or not, and wishing to find out. The only emotion i experience when i read your BS is hilarity.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

No, you're getting your panties in an hilarious twist about these things. It's your typical Chicken Little routine. Your lack of knowledge is precisely why you attempt to make yourself sound wise in matters about which you clearly know nothing. You were ranting about "priortize." all before this is useless What priorities are we in danger of violating by a reasonable caution in sending rovers to Mars? we are talking about a lot more than this, for instance in the last couple of weeks nasa though that it needed to think about this things when contemplating sending the rover that is currently on the planet to a place where it might make contact with water. The phony baloney outrage you're venting here is actually based on our not knowing if Mars is "dead" or not, and wishing to find out. We are finding out, hopefully we continue to try to find out but unless you are going to tell me that we are going to stop trying to find out out of fears of polluting the place this is irelavent to the question at hand The only emotion i experience when i read your BS is hilarity. The last part us all useless

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@hawkeye10,

Translation: you're making sh*t up because you don't really know what's going on. "The rover that is currently on the planet . . . " Which rover are you referring to? You really crack me up.

You haven't stated what priorities we are in danger of violating.

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@Setanta,

Quote:

You haven't stated what priorities we are in danger of violating.

Jesus, maybe you are WAY dumber than I took you for. When I talk about utility I am talking about the priority to ourselves, so when I talk about going against utility I am talking about violating the priority to ourselves.

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@hawkeye10,

What priority is that, Einstein? What priority to ourselves are we in danger of violating? You really are in capable of carrying on a coherent conversation--and of course, you're just trashing the thread with your idiotic attempt to make yourself sound wise and well-informed.

Here, why don't you actually inform yourself: Mars missions, science, goal one

You haven't said which rover you're referring to. You're too busy hurling insults and making vague claims to actually demonstrate some knowledge of what's going on on Mars, the only planet in our star system inhabited entirely by robots.

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For those who are actually interested in what is going on on Mars, with just one of the rovers, here's a summary from last May of the methane issue: From Astrobiology Magazine: "Mystery methan on Mars, the saga continues."

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Here's a news release from about a month ago on one of the MERs: Opportunity Mars Rover Preparing for Active Winter

The article explains the difficulties with that particular rover's flash memory. As EB seems no longer to be with us, i'll try to keep up the news on the rovers--as i have time and when i think of it.

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Here's an article from the Los Angeles Times on the MSL (Mars Science Laboratory), known as the Curiosity rover. If you go down below the second paragraph, there's a "Tour Mars" video which people might find entertaining.

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

I have no interest in learning about a mostly dead or dead planet that I want to put to human use if that learning gets in the way of its use to humans.

For the moment, and for a long time to come, just about the only "use" Mars is to humanity is in what it can teach us about planetary science and hopefully Biology. So it benefits us to not mess up the data (within reason of course). As I think I mentioned in a previous post, I not a fan of interacting with the solar system in such a cautious way as to derail a reasonable degree of progress. But I think this is a balance we're going to have to work out as we go, since we don't have any experience to build upon.

hawkeye10 wrote:

Why in the world would I give a **** what happened on it before humans?

We should care a lot what happened before. Maybe you don't, but I do, and I know a lot of other people do as well. Right now we know almost nothing about planetary evolution outside of our own planet, and we know nothing about extra-terrestrial biology, even if exists at all. These bits of scientific knowledge could have profound affects on the growth of our understanding of our solar system environment.

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