NEWEST ROVER TO LAND ON MARS 8/6/2012

Yes folks, that's right, careful analysis from NASA has determined that Mars is covered with rocks...

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia16054-figure_5white-br2.jpg

@rosborne979,

Really!

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What will it take to prove (within reasonable scientific doubt) that Mars had life on it? And conversely, what would it take to prove that Mars never had life on it?

Does this particular rover posses the resources necessary to firmly draw either of those conclusions?

I'm wondering where this quest for signs of life on Mars is likely to end. Obviously if we find life (or signs thereof) then that phase of the quest will be over and we'll just move on with learning more about it (and that could be endless because we're still learning about life on Earth). But what would it take to convince us that there's nothing to find on Mars other than rocks? And how likely is it that such a conclusion would be drawn? Or will we search for signs of life on Mars forever, never satisfied until we turn over every rock and peep into every crevice on the planet.

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@rosborne979,

I guess it will be decided when we declare what "life" really means.

BBB

1 Reply

@BumbleBeeBoogie,

BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:

I guess it will be decided when we declare what "life" really means.

I hope not. We could be waiting forever for that.

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On Earth, in front of us, almost all animal life (including Man)
has shown itself to be predatory. If extraterrestrial aliens
arrived here (obviously with superior technology) we 'd be in a lot of trouble.
(Even the aliens from Mexico have caused us too much trouble.)

We 'd live at the at the E.T.'s discretion. I don't welcome that.

I hope that we r alone in the Universe, tho because of its vastness,
I deem it sadly unlikely that life has not arisen elsewhere.

I cherish n relish the distances between celestial bodies.

David

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@OmSigDAVID,

http://hvac-talk.com/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=298041&d=1344293162

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@OmSigDAVID,

It seems that your pervasive fear of not being the one with superior weaponry permeates your entire viewpoint on the world, and the Universe.

1 Reply

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/00003/mcam/0003ML0000095000E1_DXXX.jpg

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@rosborne979,

Did you take that picture in California?

1 Reply

@rosborne979,

rosborne979 wrote:

It seems that your pervasive fear of not being the one with superior weaponry permeates your entire viewpoint on the world, and the Universe.

It's a valid fear. If aliens show up in orbit tomorrow, we will be very lucky to merely suffer the same fate as that of the Native Americans after the Europeans discovered America.

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

I cherish n relish the distances between celestial bodies.

Me too.

The sheer number of solar systems is also a comfort. Even if there were aliens traveling between the stars, the odds are remote that they would happen to pick our particular star out of all the other possible choices they could choose to visit.

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

Did you take that picture in California?

Ha

I know, it looks like that doesn't it?

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@rosborne979,

Is it my imagination or do a lot of the rocks (blue circles) seem to have a similar shape? They seem to have points with flat weathered faces. Different from some of the other rocks which seem more irregular (red circles).

I wonder if this is just due to small sample size (one photo), or weathering, or some type of fracture pattern.

http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/8546/skitch20120814013008000.jpg

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

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@rosborne979,

Interactive, 360 Degrees Of Mars!
August 14, 2012
by Claire O'Neill - NPR

On 360cities.net, Andrew Bodrov describes himself as a panographer, not a photographer. In fact, he didn't even take the photos in this panorama; the Mars rover Curiosity did. Bodrov stitched NASA's images together to create this amazing, 360-degree interactive image of the red planet. Hit "fullscreen" to experience the full awesomeness.

Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 2 in New Mexico

http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/08/14/158754314/interactive-360-degrees-of-mars

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@oralloy,

rosborne979 wrote:

It seems that your pervasive fear of not being the one with superior weaponry
permeates your entire viewpoint on the world, and the Universe.

oralloy wrote:

It's a valid fear. If aliens show up in orbit tomorrow,
we will be very lucky to merely suffer the same fate
as that of the Native Americans after the Europeans discovered America.

Yes. That is exactly my point.
The E.T.s woud wanna run things THEIR way.
If thay had the means to enforce that, it woud happen.
Rosborne scoffs at that prospect; he seems to imply that it does not matter.

Another possibility is that E.T.s woud see us
the same as if we arrived with bug spray at an island inhabited
by swarms of annoying mosquitos. I surmise that 's OK with rosborne.

David

2 Replies

@OmSigDAVID,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

Yes. That is exactly my point.
The E.T.s woud wanna run things THEIR way.
If thay had the means to enforce that, it woud happen.
Rosborne scoffs at that prospect; he seems to imply that it does not matter.

Another possibility is that E.T.s woud see us
the same as if we arrived with bug spray at an island inhabited
by swarms of annoying mosquitos. I surmise that 's OK with rosborne.

If it makes you feel any better, faster-than-light travel is likely to be 100% impossible. Thus any travel of life between the stars will likely require high sub-light speeds (with time distortions making it a one-way trip, everyone back home will be long dead when the travelers arrive at their destination).

Thus while it will be possible for life to slowly colonize the stars, the spread from star system to star system will very likely be a fairly slow process.

And given the number of possible star systems to colonize, we are likely very far away from any potential alien colonists.

On the other hand, given the one-way nature of such travel, any alien colonists who do show up, will probably not want to leave.

This all presumes that I am right about faster-than-light travel being 100% impossible of course. (But it is likely that I am.)

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@OmSigDAVID,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

Rosborne scoffs at that prospect; he seems to imply that it does not matter.

I no more scoff at that prospect than I do the prospect of being struck by a meteorite as I walk out the front door. Both events are possible, although being stuck by a meteor is much more probable.

It is no more logical to worry about a meteor strike than it is to worry about ultra-advanced ET's who could (and would) squash us like bugs. Both events are out of our control, the killer ET one even more so than the meteor strike.

The only thing that is in our control is our choice of behavior and the use of our time in relationship to irrational (or paranoid) fears.

1 Reply

@rosborne979,

Yes, I agree, it's out of our control, but it seems some people are slaves to their own fears.

Very funny!

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

What it is, Tak, is that some people don't understand the difference between reality (i.e. that which is probable and likely) and fantasy (i.e. that which is possible but highly unlikely).

1 Reply

NEWEST ROVER TO LAND ON MARS 8/6/2012

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