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Organic Matter Found On Mars


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21 minutes ago, RochesterRob said:

  I wonder if they can tell from the sample just what level of life the OM came from.  Animal or plant?  Did they not find evidence of bacteria having existed on Mars at some point in time?

Organic matter doesn't mean "life".

 

It just means they found stuff that is carbon based in the rocks, which are around 3.5 billion years old.

 

The carbon on its own can't tell you its source; it could be inorganic sources delivered by meteorites or from volcanoes on Mars.

 

The key is that you need the stuff for life to grow, so this suggests we may find more evidence of actual life on Mars down the road.

 

I don't believe they know what the organic material is, precisely.  Not yet at least.

 

This is a much better/more detailed article than the thing I posted from CNN.

 

https://www.popsci.com/organic-matter-rocks-on-mars#page-4

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6 hours ago, snafu said:

The only reason I care about Mars is the hope that some day they space truck half of the Earths population over there.

I think they're seriously looking for something better.

 

They have multiple plans, but...the Mars plan (as far as colonization goes) sucks ass. I think Mars' only legitimate purpose is information-gathering.

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7 hours ago, snafu said:

The only reason I care about Mars is the hope that some day they space truck half of the Earths population over there.

 

You might be first on the list to be truckin

 

 

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12 hours ago, dpberr said:

Hop, skip and a jump from our clandestine moon base.  

 

It's not yours...you're only leasing it from the Gleebs.

7 hours ago, snafu said:

The only reason I care about Mars is the hope that some day they space truck half of the Earths population over there.

Ah...but which half?...

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I don't get why there isn't a push for a moon colony. Closer, easier to get to and from. They think they found water ice in some craters. There's your air and fuel. Plenty of solar electricity. (No clouds.) The Moon is probably loaded with minable metals. Easier first step than Mars.

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2 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

I don't get why there isn't a push for a moon colony. Closer, easier to get to and from. They think they found water ice in some craters. There's your air and fuel. Plenty of solar electricity. (No clouds.) The Moon is probably loaded with minable metals. Easier first step than Mars.

 

 

Location location location?

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2 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

I don't get why there isn't a push for a moon colony. Closer, easier to get to and from. They think they found water ice in some craters. There's your air and fuel. Plenty of solar electricity. (No clouds.) The Moon is probably loaded with minable metals. Easier first step than Mars.

That's how you know it's all bullshite. It doesn't make sense they would be attempting anything on mars until they worked out the systems, tech on the moon. Funny they haven't' gone back in almost 50 years. You think building a small outpost there would give much-needed experience. Yet all NASA and the rest of them can do is float this pipe dream of going to Mars. Amazing but at 50 million dollars a day budget I guess it's worth investing in marketing.

Edited by Dante
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18 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

I don't get why there isn't a push for a moon colony. Closer, easier to get to and from. They think they found water ice in some craters. There's your air and fuel. Plenty of solar electricity. (No clouds.) The Moon is probably loaded with minable metals. Easier first step than Mars.

Why would you want a moon colony?

 

The moon is fairly well understood and fairly uninteresting.

 

The idea is to go where there is some interesting stuff to check out.  The closest of those locations in our solar system is Mars.  Jupiter has several moons that would also be very high on the interest list, but they are even further away.

 

One of Joe Rogan's best podcasts ever was with Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield.  He discusses this and the various technical issues that still need to be overcome.  

 

You can watch/listen at Joe Rogan's website or Youtube.

 

 

 

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