Odyssey Arriving at Mars Tonight

moloader writes: "Odyssey will arrive at Mars on October 24, 2001, 0230 Universal Time (October 23, 7:30pm PDT/ 10:30pm EDT). As it nears its closest point to the planet over the northern hemisphere, the spacecraft will fire its 640-newton main engine for approximately 19.7 minutes to allow itself to be captured into an elliptical, or looping, orbit about 20 hours long. Go Mars!"

Beware reduced visibility!

[imrdkl]

The Giant Dust Storm [slashdot.org] currently swirling around could make for some interesting study, anyways.

Re:Be careful

[lkaos]

I would also have to dispute the statement that if their is water, their has to be air. Almost all planets have some sort of atmosphere. The existance of water has absolutely nothing to do with atmosphere. The chances of their being life currently on Mars (atleast, in the form that we know it) would most likely only be bacterial reemains from a prior time period considering that the equators of Mars only reach a high temp of somewhere around 0C. Without liquid water (which there surely, isn't on Mars), then their is very little chance for life.

I do believe though that out of respect, we shouldn't litter the planet with all sorts of robots and stuff... If there is no other way though, then oh well.

Dust Storm

[msheppard]

The Dust Storm [nasa.gov] which can dramatically change the height and density of the atmosphere, are a particular concern during aerobraking.

A great article on the whole procedure is at this link [nasa.gov].

Re:Give NASA some respect!

[MrFredBloggs]

"The "metric mishap" was due to a sub-contractors."

What the fuck? Who was in charge of them? Jesus, do you work for them or something? Unbelievable!

Re:Life cares about water

[Iron Sun]

What makes you think that?

Well, several things would seem to point to that being the most likely course of events if there is any life on Mars at all.

First and foremost, remember the Martian meteorite that reignited the whole debate? Some scientists are now theorizing that life was thrown about amongst most of the bodies of the inner Solar System in the early days. Therefore any life that did take root on any planets would have features in common. Life on Earth is water based, so any Martian life is therfore more likely to be the same.

Such statements remind me of early speculation that Mars or even Venus could be "sister planets" to Earth that humans could live on if we could just reach them.

Centuries ago, people thought the planets were gods. At least the more recent idea of sister planets was closer to the truth. Theories are continuing to evolve, and much current speculation will turn out to be wrong, but we know more that we used to.

To believe that all life requires water is equally foolish.

It's impossible to eliminate really exotic biochemistries, but in the inner Solar System water-based life has an overwhelming advantage for many of the same reasons that life is also carbon based: those chemicals are unbelievably versatile, far more so than any other form of chemistry. Liquid water has a number of properties that set it apart from other substances. Ask any chemist about hydrogen bonding and thermal properties. It makes water possibly uniquely suited to its role in life. Any alternate biology would seem unlikely within the so-called "habitable zone" around the Sun.