So what do we know about MARS so far?

[beer]

How did dark matter get brought into this conversation?
How does dark matter have anything to do with Mars? Mars was made from the exact same solar material that the earth was made from.

I would like Dead Parrot Sketch to explain to me his logic for bringing in dark matter as it relates to Mars rovers and then how it somehow ties into us finding stable elements on mars that don't exist on Earth?

 

[BatmanNate]

Originally posted by: WinstonSmith
Hmm, if the Moon had He3 on it, would not Mars as well?

If they can ever get a friggin fusion reactor to work, and it is retrievable on Mars, I would think a permanent colony could pretty much be set up right away. Doing so is just a matter of raw power. You could make anything once you had that.

The moon has He3 on it because it has no atmosphere. Wouldn't Mars's atmosphere likely deflect most if not all He3? Besides, it is not of any use to us as we have yet to be able to devise a method of fusion that produces more power than it consumes.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: beer
How did dark matter get brought into this conversation?
How does dark matter have anything to do with Mars? Mars was made from the exact same solar material that the earth was made from.

I would like Dead Parrot Sketch to explain to me his logic for bringing in dark matter as it relates to Mars rovers and then how it somehow ties into us finding stable elements on mars that don't exist on Earth?

Dark matter came into the discussion as Dead Parrot Sketch was attempting to argue that there are some substances that we don't know what exactly they are made of, but that is the fairly dissapointing thing as we can not see it or easily detect it, they most likely aren't going to be these magic bars of gold floating around that we can't see or handle for no reason at all but will somehow be able to build space fleets out of them and conquer the galaxy far far away that StarWars takes place in. It's most likely dark matter is to be sub atomic particles, not even elements. Particles such as neutrinos or wimps, we've just got to find a way to detect them first.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: BatmanNate

Originally posted by: WinstonSmith
Hmm, if the Moon had He3 on it, would not Mars as well?

If they can ever get a friggin fusion reactor to work, and it is retrievable on Mars, I would think a permanent colony could pretty much be set up right away. Doing so is just a matter of raw power. You could make anything once you had that.

The moon has He3 on it because it has no atmosphere. Wouldn't Mars's atmosphere likely deflect most if not all He3? Besides, it is not of any use to us as we have yet to be able to devise a method of fusion that produces more power than it consumes.

This is not the case, the problem with the methods of our fusion is that it is so hard to control the reactions. But we have been able to get more energy than we put into, it's just not very efficient and the energy isn't exactly easily "harvested" just yet...going to be another 50 years even though they said we'd have it in 50 years 50 years ago .

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Originally posted by: BatmanNate

Originally posted by: WinstonSmith
Hmm, if the Moon had He3 on it, would not Mars as well?

If they can ever get a friggin fusion reactor to work, and it is retrievable on Mars, I would think a permanent colony could pretty much be set up right away. Doing so is just a matter of raw power. You could make anything once you had that.

The moon has He3 on it because it has no atmosphere. Wouldn't Mars's atmosphere likely deflect most if not all He3? Besides, it is not of any use to us as we have yet to be able to devise a method of fusion that produces more power than it consumes.

Well Mars does have an atmosphere to be sure, but it is extremely tenuous, and if I recall correctly, Mars does not have a strong magnetosphere, something on the order of 1/10% of earths.

Might block it, but I would be curious to know if surface He3 can be reasonably ruled out by those who know more than myself.

Anybody know?

 

[matt426malm]

Originally posted by: WinstonSmith

Originally posted by: BatmanNate

Originally posted by: WinstonSmith
Hmm, if the Moon had He3 on it, would not Mars as well?

If they can ever get a friggin fusion reactor to work, and it is retrievable on Mars, I would think a permanent colony could pretty much be set up right away. Doing so is just a matter of raw power. You could make anything once you had that.

The moon has He3 on it because it has no atmosphere. Wouldn't Mars's atmosphere likely deflect most if not all He3? Besides, it is not of any use to us as we have yet to be able to devise a method of fusion that produces more power than it consumes.

Well Mars does have an atmosphere to be sure, but it is extremely tenuous, and if I recall correctly, Mars does not have a strong magnetosphere, something on the order of 1/10% of earths.

Might block it, but I would be curious to know if surface He3 can be reasonably ruled out by those who know more than myself.

Anybody know?

Mars is at a distance of 1.5 AUs from the Sun. 1/d^2 (inverse square law for solar intensity) = 44% the intensity of earth(moon) on Mars so at the most optomistic estimate it is less than half as much. Then when you factor in the a magnetosphere, an atmosphere, previous accumulation buried by lava flows(km worth in many areas) and wind sedimentation(several to 10's of meters), and so on. The moon is just so much more viable becuase it is as dead and static.

I couldn't find anything specificly on the topic.

Probably cheap to ship it because it could easily escape the moons gravity. Or first off take take radioisotope reactors, wind power won't work(thin atmosphere), I've heard solar mirrors (the salt heating type) won't work because that requires parallel rays and the dust does a good job of scattering rays, solar panels would work 1/2 as much gets to Mars but on the Earth 1/2 is reflected by the atmosphere and clouds (earth as a whole) closer to a 1/4 in desert areas, I bet less would be reflected on Mars as a whole, geothermal is a possibility too.

 

[Tom]

Originally posted by: beer
How did dark matter get brought into this conversation?
How does dark matter have anything to do with Mars? Mars was made from the exact same solar material that the earth was made from.

I would like Dead Parrot Sketch to explain to me his logic for bringing in dark matter as it relates to Mars rovers and then how it somehow ties into us finding stable elements on mars that don't exist on Earth?

If you read my first post in this thread it should be clear enough. I was refuting the assertion that there is no possibility that anything we don't know all about could have survived for billions of years.

Beyond that the "discovery" of dark matter is an example of the reason why exploration is valuable. We aren't exploring Mars because we know what is there, we are exploring it because we don't know.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Originally posted by: Dead Parrot Sketch

Originally posted by: beer
How did dark matter get brought into this conversation?
How does dark matter have anything to do with Mars? Mars was made from the exact same solar material that the earth was made from.

I would like Dead Parrot Sketch to explain to me his logic for bringing in dark matter as it relates to Mars rovers and then how it somehow ties into us finding stable elements on mars that don't exist on Earth?

If you read my first post in this thread it should be clear enough. I was refuting the assertion that there is no possibility that anything we don't know all about could have survived for billions of years.

Beyond that the "discovery" of dark matter is an example of the reason why exploration is valuable. We aren't exploring Mars because we know what is there, we are exploring it because we don't know.

There will be things we don't expect, and most likely things we havent seen before. I would imagine Mars being a unique planet may have unique geological formations and processes not seen on Earth. What we will not find is a unique physics. The rules are the same here as everywhere, but the conditions will lead to different results. You will not find super heavy elements on Mars, because the stuff that made the Solar System was created before it all came together. Creation of stable, longed lived SHEs have been long postulated, but the energy required is beyond anything we possess, and likely to be so for some time. There is no natural process in the Solar System that could have produced them after Mars was created. There is no mechanism for it, and if there were, Mars would have been vaporized as a result.

I am not saying that unknown discoveries WONT happen, but I think we can provide reasonable limits on the kind of things that could exist.

 

[Tom]

"What we will not find is a unique physics. The rules are the same here as everywhere, but the conditions will lead to different results."

What rules ? Are you sure they apply "everywhere" ? What about anytime ?

Or do you know if "anytime" is different than "everywhere" ?

Do your "rules" tell you ?


Does matter exist without time ? How about gravity ? Maybe gravity is the affect of time on matter ?

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Originally posted by: Dead Parrot Sketch
"What we will not find is a unique physics. The rules are the same here as everywhere, but the conditions will lead to different results."

What rules ? Are you sure they apply "everywhere" ? What about anytime ?

Or do you know if "anytime" is different than "everywhere" ?

Do your "rules" tell you ?


Does matter exist without time ? How about gravity ? Maybe gravity is the affect of time on matter ?

I could take quite some time and talk about higher dimensional holographic projection from negative de Sitter space, but while that sounds all nice and fancy, what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

What is the color of five? Not the representation of the number but the objective quantity five. What about perfect geometrical objects in Platonic space? Do they exist?

What about equations? Do they have objective reality? If so, where are they? What are their innate physical qualities? If not, then why is it that equations derived always match? Why does Calculus work?

Yes, the "rules" tell a great deal. If you want to get metaphysical, I can do that too. Did you know there is a school of thought that says there are no physical laws, but just a string of seemingly improbable coincidences? How about the fact that there is a non zero chance that you did not exist the moment before you read this, but you and the entire Universe came into being complete with everyone having matching memories of "history"? If you want to argue along these lines, I cannot at least scientifically, since science is a rules based system for understanding what can be measured, and tested with repeatable results.

Now if we are going in for science, then we have "rules" that we abide by. One consistency. We have sent probes all over the Solar System. Physical constants have NOT varied, and the fact that stars exist in extremely remote places where ever you look. That places constraints on the variability of the fundamental four forces of the universe. Also, note how "flat" and "smooth" space is. You could argue that space is infinitely variable, but the summations of all the different forces in this now space-distinct universe coincidently net up to the same effects. Like I said, if you are arguing these kinds of things, then you might believe the sun will not rise tomorrow, because the multi billion year coincidence of the sun rising will fail.

Oh, for joo! If there is a Universe with just one object, can that object move?

Think about it.

Either the rules apply at least in a casually related volume of space, or it is all remarkable coincidence and could (and should) evaporate any moment.

Which is it?

 

[Tom]

None of my comments or questions are remotely like what you just posted. But if it gives you pleasure that's ok wit me.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Originally posted by: Dead Parrot Sketch
None of my comments or questions are remotely like what you just posted. But if it gives you pleasure that's ok wit me.

It's all good as they say. The questions I posted are a few of the things I have wondered about, or have debated over a few beers with others.

My point is that there are a whole host of issues that are indeed valad to discuss, but I don't expect to find any anwers to exotic physics questions on Mars because of those confounded rules

Now biology is another issue. IF (big if) remains of life (and more improbably life itself) were found on Mars, would it resemble that on Earth? And if it did, then perhaps life started in the same place. Certainly if we found a unicellular organism complete with mitochondria, and a similar genetic sequence, then that raises what I consider the likelyhood of a common source.

Of course, where did THAT come from?

Speculation is FUN!

 

[Electric Amish]

Originally posted by: TheAudit

Originally posted by: MacBaine

Originally posted by: Bleep
There are NO traces of water on mars and none have been found. Only evidence that there may be.
Here is the proof.

Bleep

You know that article is 3 and a half years old right?

Mar Express maps water at southern Martian pole.

Thank you. I was just going to post that.

 

[SagaLore]

Originally posted by: Bleep
There are NO traces of water on mars and none have been found. Only evidence that there may be.
Here is the proof.

Bleep

However, there IS H2O, in frozen form.