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Mars Space

New Movies of Whirlwinds on Mars 153

Posted by CmdrTaco from the this-don't-look-like-kansas-no-more dept.
FleaPlus writes "The Pasadena Star-News, APOD, and WPBF report on new movies of Martian whirlwinds, captured by Spirit rover inside Gusev Crater. These movies are the result of a new imaging technique developed after the initial spotting of whirlwinds by Spirit last month. Here is the first and second video. According to a rover team member, 'This is the best look we've ever gotten of the wind effects on the martian surface as they are happening.'"
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New Movies of Whirlwinds on Mars More

New Movies of Whirlwinds on Mars

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  • Animated GIFs, not movies... (Score:5, Informative)

    by garcia ( 6573 ) * on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @11:46AM (#12360698)
    Direct links to the animated GIFs are here:

    PIA07861.gif [nasa.gov] and PIA07863.gif [nasa.gov].

    To those of you that don't want to download 3MB of animated GIFs for a 2 second view of a whirlwind on Mars let me sum it up for you. Dust, a small hill, and what appears to be a UFO dancing around on the screen.

    For those of you that are conspiracy theorists... This could be a UFO sighting! It also could have been made in any one of the deserts in the USA (or abroad!) ;-)
    • It's funny how the more earthlike features we find on Mars, the more habitable it seems to become. That is, until you stop to realize that the atmosphere is still really thin, almost vacuum, and comprised of nothing we can breathe.
      • t's funny how the more earthlike features we find on Mars, the more habitable it seems to become. That is, until you stop to realize that the atmosphere is still really thin, almost vacuum, and comprised of nothing we can breathe.

        Well how unihabitable is Mars anyway? hmm lets see... the ambient atmospheric pressure on Mt. Everest here on Earth can be 140-220 millibars and people climb that thing maybe with the assistance of a little bit of oxygen. (No space suit). Well on Mars... hmm according to NASA say

        • assphyxiation ???

          I don't want to know, really I don't.

          But seriously, yes, at the bottom of Valles Marineris at noon on a summer's day, you could probably stand the weather if you had on a good parka and a breathing mask. Of course, then there's the radiation that would give any exposed skin a serious sunburn in just a few minutes; at least that's the way I understand it.

          I suspect you understood that I was just saying that, due to our media exposure to a very familiar looking place, we're slowly getti

    • Re:Animated GIFs, not movies... (Score:5, Informative)

      by PIPBoy3000 ( 619296 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @11:51AM (#12360775)
      I saw this on Fark a few days ago. The quality is good, if a bit choppy.

      FYI - this is further evidence of the process [theregister.co.uk] by which the rover's solar panels are regularly cleaned (thus extending the mission's life).

    • Re:Animated GIFs, not movies... (Score:4, Funny)

      by lucabrasi999 ( 585141 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @12:05PM (#12360960) Journal
      This could be a UFO sighting!

      Actually it looks more like a piece of Beagle

    • . . .or the whole thing could be computer-generated, like the moon-landings.

      (this is why CPU speeds doubled every 18-months, because the "known" industry, state-of-the-art, had to catch up quickly (over 20 years) to the CPU technology the greys gave us back in 1962.)

  • Another NASA Cover-Up! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @11:46AM (#12360703)
    Clearly this effect is caused by the recoil of an Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator

  • Winds.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by grazzy ( 56382 ) <grazzy@quake.s w e . net> on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @11:47AM (#12360723) Homepage Journal
    Could anyone care to explain how winds are started if there is no to little atmosphere? Does this for instance imply that there is water in the air on mars?

    • Re:Winds.. (Score:5, Informative)

      by TheKidWho ( 705796 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @11:50AM (#12360753)
      There is atmosphere on mars, it's about 100times less then that of the earth at "sea level", but it is still significant. And there is H2O in Mar's Atmosphere, where do you think those melting ice caps go in the martian summer =)

      http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~soper/Mars/atmosphere.h tm l
      • No idea, I just wanna know how those winds are starting. Doesnt something have to "push" them?

        • Re:Winds.. (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Ironsides ( 739422 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @11:56AM (#12360834) Homepage Journal
          No idea, I just wanna know how those winds are starting. Doesnt something have to "push" them?

          Winds on mars occur for the same reason as wind on earth. Pretty much the sun heats up one area more than another and causes a pressure differential. Just because there is a lot less atmosphere on mars doesn't mean it occurs for a different reason.

        • Re:Winds.. (Score:4, Funny)

          by Rei ( 128717 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @12:10PM (#12361017) Homepage
          You mean, in the same way that Boreas, God of the North Wind, causes winter gales hear on Earth - by "pushing"? :)

        • Re:Winds.. (Score:5, Informative)

          by Naikrovek ( 667 ) <jjohnson&psg,com> on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @12:15PM (#12361075)
          The sun pushes them. when one side of the planet is hot, and the other is cold, the hot air tries to move into the cold air. hot air expands, and pushes itself into neighboring areas.

          some locations on mars are different colors, so the sun gets converted to heat differently in different areas. eventually you get a lot of wind that seems to come from nowhere, because of turbulence. geography and other packets of high and low pressure cause turbulence.

          so your answer to what pushes the wind on mars is the same thing that pushes the wind on the Earth. Sunlight.

          • Re:Winds.. (Score:4, Informative)

            by MooseByte ( 751829 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @12:33PM (#12361300)

            "The sun pushes them. when one side of the planet is hot, and the other is cold, the hot air tries to move into the cold air. hot air expands, and pushes itself into neighboring areas."

            I think it's more a matter of warmer "air" (generic atmospheric gases) wanting to rise, and colder air wanting to sink. You get a convection thing going.

            For a good effect here on earth, cooler evening winds coming off of mountains and down canyons is a good example. Large thunderstorms as well - rising warm air slurps up a bunch of surrounding ground air with it (winds radially toward center of buildup) then when it all cools high in the atmosphere it cuts loose and the cold air rapidly sinks back toward the ground, creating strong winds radially away from the storm's center.

      • Venus (Score:3, Interesting)

        by John Seminal ( 698722 )
        Here is a comparison of the atmospheric composition of Earth and Venus and Mars. I list the number of molecules per m2 of surface area of the planet in each planet's atmosphere relative to the total number of molecules per m2 in Earth's atmosphere

        xxx Earth xx Venus xx Mars
        O2 xx 0.20 xx 0.001 xx 10^-7
        CO2 xx 0.0003 xx 64 xx 0.009
        H2O xx ~ 0.02 xx ~ 0.01 xx ~10-6

        Am I reading this right, we have more of an atmosphere on Venus than mars? Why don't we go search

        • Venus' thick atmosphere has created a runaway greenhouse effect. Temperatures can reach 900 C and I suspect there is probably not enough sunlight reaching the surface to grow plants.

          NASA landed a probe there many years ago. You can still find the surface pics on their web site. Guess what? It looks like Mars :)
        • I assume you're kidding or trolling... right? I mean, unless you like the notion of living under 80 atmospheres of pressure at temperatures hot enough to melt gold...
          • I assume you're kidding or trolling... right? I mean, unless you like the notion of living under 80 atmospheres of pressure at temperatures hot enough to melt gold...

            We have built submarines that can withstand great pressure diving to the depths of the sea. We have built research stations in the antartic that only can be manned for a couple months a year because of the cold, but we built them. We built space ships, space stations.

            If we wanted to, every problem you describe is a challenge that someone w

            • Um, no. Please, present a realistic scenario - system electronics, for example, that will work at those temperatures. What do you propose to do about power to not only run electronics, but also run the bloody-huge heat pumps to keep the thing cooler than, say, the melting point of gold? RTGs work by *differentials* in temperature, and even in good conditions couldn't even begin to give that much power.

              Insulation is not the problem - insulation only delays heat flow. You have to be able to pump heat out
              • "It's a miracle that some life can live around the boiling point of water; Venus temperatures are just ridiculous - it's like expecting to find life in a volcano."

                But there ARE bacteria in volcanos... try googling "bacteria in volcano" and looking at some of the top 10 results.
                • I did. No hits. If I remove the quotes, you get references to them living in the *rims* of volcanoes, and around the edges of vents, but nothing in the interior (i.e., *In* the volcano). Even the most hardy Archaea can't survive more than a couple hundred degrees.
                  • On closer inspection I see that you are indeed correct. I did the search because I had remembered reading something about bacteria being found in volcanos and the search results appeared to support that.

                    I probably was remembering a Slashdot headline indicating bateria living in volcanos and pointing to an article saying bacteria lived in vents. ;)
            • If we wanted to, every problem you describe is a challenge that someone will find an anwser to. Just because it is hard does not mean it can't be done.

              To illustrate this problem, let's review a little history. When the Russians first decided to go to Venus, they built a test facility to test the Venus surface conditions of acidity, heat and pressure. Then they built a probe; the toughest strongest probe they could, and put it in the test chamber under what the probe would experience on Venus.

              The left t

              • The longest a probe has ever survived on the surface of Venus was about 20 minutes

                Incorrect, Venera-9 sent back telemetry for 50 minutes and Venera-10 did so for 45 minutes, as seen here [mentallandscape.com].

            • The difference being that you are not lifting a submarine out of the earth's gravity well. As far Venus being a "time capsule," the surface of Venus has been scoured by rains of acid for millions of years. Very little has survived from the original formation of the solar system. The atmosphere in the early formation of the earth was nothing like the current atmosphere of venus. I would much rather seed the atmosphere with hyperthermophiles in an attempt to reverse the green house effect.
        • Because the runaway greenhouse effect on Venus has heated the surface temperature to a toasty 758 K (900 F). It's not just the atmosphere. There is very likely no life on the surface at that temperature. There might well be life above the lowest cloud layer. To give Venus CPR we would need to reverse the runaway greenhouse effect. Oh it also rains sulphuric acid there, hindering your exploration efforts
        • Why don't we go search that planet. If there a greater chance to find evidence of life there? Why deal with a "dead" planet when we have another planet with oxygen and carbon dioxide.

          The atmospheric pressure at Venus' surface is 90 times that of Earth's. It's like being under 1000 meters of water. Furthermore, the surface temperature is hot enough to melt lead, and clouds of sulfuric acid cover the surface.

          In other words, space probes don't last very long on Venus. Thus, it's better to go places wher

          • Why don't we go search that planet. If there a greater chance to find evidence of life there? Why deal with a "dead" planet when we have another planet with oxygen and carbon dioxide.

            The atmospheric pressure at Venus' surface is 90 times that of Earth's. It's like being under 1000 meters of water. Furthermore, the surface temperature is hot enough to melt lead, and clouds of sulfuric acid cover the surface.

            In other words, space probes don't last very long on Venus. Thus, it's better to go places where

            • Then lets build a space ship that can orbit Venus? Would we learn more that way than just using telescopes?

              Build an orbiter ?, thats a good idea maybe NASA should try that [nasa.gov]. And they could use radar to map the surface [ucar.edu] too.
            • Then lets build a space ship that can orbit Venus? Would we learn more that way than just using telescopes?

              We've done that. [nasa.gov]

              If the pressure is like being under 1000 meters of water, don't we have submirines that can withstand that?

              The pressure isn't such a big deal as long as there isn't a pressure differential. Humans can't deal with 90 bars of pressure, so we maintain a pressure differential when we go underwater. Unmanned probes don't necessarily need to maintain a pressure differential for all of t

            • Then lets build a space ship that can orbit Venus?

              We did:

              • Venera 9 - Jun. 8, 1975
              • Venera 10 - Jun. 14, 1975
              • Pioneer Venus 1 - May 20, 1978
              • Venera 11 - Sep. 9, 1978
              • Venera 12 - Sep. 14, 1978
              • Venera 13 - Oct. 30, 1981
              • Venera 14 - Nov. 4, 1981
              • Venera 15 - Jun. 2, 1983
              • Venera 16 - Jun. 7, 1983
              • Magellan - May 4, 1989

              And if it is so hot, don't we have some steel or somekind of substance which would not melt?

              We sent landers to Venus and they lasted about an hour. That's the point, the landers don't last ve

            • I don't think there's much to learn about venus. Rocks, sulphuric acid, hot. Yes, submarines go to 3000ft. They're made of steel, which starts to deform around 900F. Submarines are also unbelivably heavy. Mars is the first stop. The only time Venus will ever be studied/inhabited is if it is economically feasible to mine it for materials (uranium, maybe?).

            • If NASA had a program where they built a great new space ship that would travel to alpha centuri and back, and we were told it would take more than our lifetime, I would go. Have a family on the ship. Make it there, let the next generation study it. Eventually they would come back to earth. We would learn so much.

              The best part is, generation ships are a thing of the (sci-fi) past.

              Within 20 years, we'll have full-blown nanotech, and can then start augmenting ourselves, not worrying about dying, takin

          • I think the Russians managed to send a couple of probes to Venus back in the 70s or 80s. I think they lasted long enough to send back one or two panaramic shots before being destroyed.

            If you want to do any sort of extended stay on Venus you're going to have to either terraform the planet or live in floating cities near the top of the atmosphere. Plus: Plants may like the CO2, but the other compounds in the atmosphere are rather toxic.

            • Re:Venus (Score:3, Informative)

              by Rei ( 128717 )
              Actually, the "toxic" issue is often overstated. Spectral analysis of Venus clearly reveals the H2SO4, but it is a very tiny portion of Venus's atmosphere, and is essentially absent near the surface - we see it because it's in the cloud tops. Also, another mistaken concept is that venus is completely dry - it actually has something like 1/6th the partial pressure of water that we have on Earth (it's just a tiny amount in comparison to all of those other gasses)

              The concept of terraforming Venus is a rathe
              • Sounds like we just need a reeealy long straw and let Mars suck some of the atmoshpere out of Venus.

                Then we have two habitable planets!

              • What about Blimps on venus =)

                Since the pressure is so great on venus, you could probablly get them to float pretty high up in the atmosphere on Venus and build cities on them.
              • If I recall my Kim Stanley Robinson correctly, after the giant reflector used to warm Mars was removed, it was shipped off to Venus.

                They used it as a reflector to shield Venus from the sun, and freeze the atmosphere. Then they paved over the surface.

                Kinda involved, if you ask me :D
        • See kids? This is what happens when you sleep through science class.

          The temperature on the surface of Venus is 464C, or 136.5 degrees Celcius higher than the melting point of lead (327.5 C).

          If you thought that landing on Mars was tough, try landing on a planet where the rocks are the consistency of ice cream and your electronics bake like cinnamon rolls.

      • The ice caps are almost entirely CO2.

    • Re:Winds.. (Score:2, Informative)

      by Veinor ( 871770 )
      I'm not a meteorologist, but: I think that the sun heats the atmosphere differently, thus creating what is known as a katabatic (I think that's what it's called) wind. Also, the atmosphere does not move precisely in synch with the rotation of mars, so you get some turbulence
    • Additionally the wins may not be as strong, but the force of gravity is significantly weaker.
    • If there's *any* atmosphere, there can be wind. Winds on mars tend to be very high speed - hurricane strength is common - but because of the low pressure, it's like a faint breeze on Earth.

      Of course, all I could picture when I read this article headline was a rover surrounded by a bright technocolar landscape with fantastical beings, and Scott O'Keefe standing nearby saying "Spirit, I don't think we're in Gusev Crater anymore!". Perhaps a witch under one wheel for good measure.

    • Re:Winds.. (Score:4, Informative)

      by FrankSchwab ( 675585 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @12:04PM (#12360946) Journal
      No need for winds to start up a dust devil; they'll kick off on a perfectly calm day. What happens is that the sun heats the ground. The ground heats the air just above it. The Hot air is less dense than cold air above it, and so it tries to rise through the cold air. Some pushing and shoving goes on, because the cold air doesn't really want to move out of the way, meanwhile more air is getting heated by the ground. Eventually, the hot air finds a weak spot in the obstinate cold air and coalesces into a coherent stream which rushes upward. It sucks in hot air from the ground all around the stream; most times, due to terrain effects or random noise, the incoming air will start a rotation of the column of rising air, and Bingo! you've got a dust devil. /frank

  • Can't Wait (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TheKidWho ( 705796 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @11:47AM (#12360724)
    Until they get the next Mars Rover there that's going to be powered by a RTG (http://www.nuclearspace.com/a_2009_Rover.htm)!!

    If it ends up working anywhere near as well as the current rovers, it might still be operational when astronauts land on Mars in 2020(Im trying as hard as possible to be involved in this project once I get out of college)
    • The Mars Science Laboratory looks wonderful :) Not will it be large (SUV-sized) and have a sizable power supply, but its tools look wonderful. It will be able to take small core samples or pick up rocks, run them through a crusher, and deliver it to whatever internal experiments it chooses; the internal experiments should be able to tell not only what makes up the rock, but perform microscopy, determine the precise mineral structure and perhaps even do some isotopic analysis (i.e., we may be able to get s
    • Why aren't they sending two this time? Are they confident since both Spirit and Opportunity were successful? Or is it because this rover is much bigger so it's too expensive to send two?

  • Planetay weather (Score:4, Funny)

    by thewiz ( 24994 ) * on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @11:47AM (#12360727)
    Interesting to see what the weather looks like on Mars. What I'd like to know is if weather.com is going to start posting forecasts for other planetary bodies anytime soon.

    Very nice to know that the dust devils are helping the rovers along. I wonder if we could get them to wash and wax the rovers as well.

  • Blueberries (Score:5, Interesting)

    by The Fun Guy ( 21791 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @11:48AM (#12360732) Homepage Journal
    This supports a wind erosion theory for the bluberries. I'd heard people say that the atmosphere is too thin to really erode them much; clearly, if it's strong enough to suspend dust in densitites like this, it's got enough force to erode/polish the pebbles to roundness.
    • Yes, also - geologic events on mars occur in a timescale is much greater than the earth's volatile and "rapid" changes - plenty of time for erosion in a thin atmosphere. Think hundreds of millions to a few billion years.

    • Re:Blueberries (Score:4, Informative)

      by Rei ( 128717 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @12:20PM (#12361130) Homepage
      Why is this marked so highly? The blueberries are clearly [futurescience.org] already round [msn.com] when embedded in their source rocks. They're formed the same way a number of types of rocks on Earth are: A hollow cavity is filled in by a different mineral than the surrounding rock (a water soluable mineral) which is harder than the surrounding rock; the surrounding rock erodes and leaves the filler mineral.
    • ...if it's strong enough to suspend dust in densitites like this...

      Densities like what? These are enhanced images.

      They've taken multiple frames, subtracted them to get images that are uniform except where something has moved/changed, increased the contrast in the subtracted images and added them back in to the originals. This is a good way of making things that change really stand out, but is not useful for even qualitative estimates of the dust density.

      In the original images you can barely see anythi

  • A Mars movie? (Score:4, Funny)

    by OneBigWord ( 692129 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @11:49AM (#12360746) Homepage
    These movies are certainly better that Red Planet [imdb.com].
  • Look real close. Isn't that the Tazmanian Devil in the center of that thing?

  • Scientific proof (Score:5, Funny)

    by TiggertheMad ( 556308 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @11:51AM (#12360782) Journal
    ...and in conclusion, this footage offers concrete proof that there are not martian dust devils, as my esteemed colleges suggest, but proof of Tasmain Martianius Spinnus maximus, or in laymas terms, Martian Tasmanian Devils.

  • Mirror of GIFs (Score:4, Informative)

    by alienfluid ( 677872 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @11:52AM (#12360785) Homepage
    The page will almost certainly get /.d since the animated GIFs are over 1.5 MB each.

    Here's a mirror if that happens:
    Video 1 [farhanahmed.net]
    Video 2 [farhanahmed.net]
    Have fun!

  • The pictures are like Lost In Space (Score:4, Interesting)

    by John Seminal ( 698722 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @11:53AM (#12360802) Journal
    I had no idea there was wind on mars. That is kinda cool to think they have wind. If we built a enclosed research station, we could have wind generated power.

    I hope we get a research station on mars, even if it is unmanned. It will be a starting point for building more.

  • Two in one? (Score:2, Informative)

    by smooth wombat ( 796938 )
    Unless I'm mistaken, if you look closely along the top, right edge of the images in the first link you can see another dust devil. It appears near the horizon edge and meets the edge of the overall image right before the main dust devil appears.

    Unless it's some kind of artifact from the processing it looks like NASA got a two-for-one.

    • No, you're right. I suspect that's why they have those otherwise blank-appearing frames at the beginning of the clip instead of just showing the few frames with the large dust devil in the foreground.
    • I want to know how the fuck this comment is offtopic. It clearly is not.

      Shitfaced mods. Quit injecting your personal crap on very ontopic comments.

      This is exactly why I metamoderate all comments marked as Redundant as Unfair.

  • Gosh, what next? (Score:5, Funny)

    by RealProgrammer ( 723725 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @11:57AM (#12360866) Homepage Journal
    The properties of fluids are the same on Earth and Mars.

    Man, what if all of physics works the same there? Just think of the number of stories.

    "Scientist discovers light on Mars!"

    "Stuff falls down when you drop it on Mars!"

    "On Mars, stuff stays where you put it!"

    "On Mars, a rock keeps moving if you kick it!"

    "Mars displays friction!"

    "On Mars, energy tends to move from stuff with more to stuff with less!"

    This didn't start out as a Troll, sorry. I'm just tired of Martian News of the obvious.

    • Re:Gosh, what next? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by icejai ( 214906 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @12:11PM (#12361034)
      This might tickle your brain a bit.

      On earth, the day is blue and the sun sets red.

      On mars, it's the other way around: The day is red and the sunsets are blue.

      Weird huh?
    • I think we finally found our replacement to "In Soviet Russia..."
    • Gosh, what next? The properties of fluids are the same on Earth and Mars.

      I know you weren't really trolling, but seriously you need to reexamine your understanding of the scientific process.

      The fact that there are dustdevils on mars isn't new - the scientists I worked with on MER had concluded that there were plenty nearby from satalite imagery (they seem to be formed often in craters and leave trails, as seen in some unreleased satalite imagery). We've had prior observations of effects of dust devil
        • ... just because an experiment or observation is not novel does not mean we have nothing to learn from it!

        Atmospheric conditions on Mars are interesting, and certainly worth studying in their own right. While we can predict in software the way it ought to work given lower gravity, different air composition, cold, etc., studying it for real is something else.

        My complaint is with the hype over all things Martian, and I decided to have some fun with it.

  • What kind of analysis will scientists do with this (Score:4, Interesting)

    by joshtimmons ( 241649 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @12:01PM (#12360907) Homepage
    I'm curious to know how much effort/man hours is put into studying this kind of phenomena. Do NASA folks just say "That's cool, look at that." like I do, or do they assign a team to spend a month trying to extrapolate airspeed, volume, spin direction, lifespan, and other attributes that I can't even think of?

    I guess I mean: does this really mean anything important to a scientist, or is it just eyecandy for the taxpayers?

    • Re:What kind of analysis will scientists do with t (Score:5, Interesting)

      by John Seminal ( 698722 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @12:10PM (#12361014) Journal
      I'm curious to know how much effort/man hours is put into studying this kind of phenomena. Do NASA folks just say "That's cool, look at that." like I do, or do they assign a team to spend a month trying to extrapolate airspeed, volume, spin direction, lifespan, and other attributes that I can't even think of?

      I guess I mean: does this really mean anything important to a scientist, or is it just eyecandy for the taxpayers?

      They have teams. Nothing is done because of individual interest. It is a huge beuracracy, you have managment like any business, that directs the scientists.

      It is one of the knocks on the university system. When you start out, getting your BA or AB, you can study many different things, math, biology, literature, physics, sociology, chemisty. But once you start for a PhD, you then pick one small thing and spend the next 7 years studying it and researching it. For example, you could not pick Biology for a PhD, you would pick Genetics. And even then, you're research might be limited to a subset of Genetics, maybe how Gene X produces protien Y in albinos.

      I think it would be cool if places like NASA let scientists pick thier projects. Or even let outsiders in, for example if you have a masters in geography and you're interested in helping map the surface of mars, that you can sign up for that work.

      Come to think of it, why don't they run NASA like sourcefourge. There is alot of talent out there. And it would make people feel like they are contributing to discovery, rather than living a mundane dilbertesq life.

      • I guess I mean: does this really mean anything important to a scientist, or is it just eyecandy for the taxpayers?

        They have teams. Nothing is done because of individual interest. It is a huge beuracracy, you have managment like any business, that directs the scientists.

        Well, yes and no. One of the scientists I work with at Cornell University is in the Atmospheric interest group of the MER project. The science team is broken up into interest groups such as Atmospheric, Geology, Soils, Long Term Plann
    • I guess I mean: does this really mean anything important to a scientist, or is it just eyecandy for the taxpayers?

      Never underestimate the power of eyecandy for the taxpayers. They want to see what their millions of dollars buy and eyecandy appeals to even the least technically minded.

      That's one great thing about these space missions. NASA, JPL, and the ESA let us see the interesting images (and the mundane ones - but no one talks about those much). Plus, the images are available to the whole world, n

  • This just in... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This just in: Mars Blows
  • The sporadic winds were two-edge sword. For the first [earth] year Spirit panels were getting progressing dirty, to the point where power was down to 40%. Then the one day the dust was mostly blown off and the power doubled. The fact that a devil may have actually collided with a rover suggested to NASA that they might be common enough to actively search for them.
  • We all know those whirlwinds, which some will undoubtedly try to claim are "naturally occurring" are really caused by Global Warming on Mars caused by the Mars Lander emissions. An attempt at humor, yes. Just wait though, someone will actually end up claiming this before it is all over.

  • martian pr0n (Score:2, Funny)

    by Vamphyri ( 26309 )
    carbon based life forms copulating in connubial bliss.

    How do we know that these "dust devils" aren't really martian orgies? Or those whirlwinds when the road runner and Wile E. Coyote fight? Or the cloud created when Pigpen walks anywhere in Peanuts cartoons?

    (tongue firmly in cheek)

  • Looks like (Score:4, Funny)

    by Tenebrious1 ( 530949 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @12:19PM (#12361122) Homepage
    Looks like dust kicked up by aerial machine gun fire. Maybe the martians are using the rover as a training target.

  • So is no one else old enough to think of Adam Strange and the Dust Devils when reading this? Looks like NASA hit the wrong planet with their rovers.
  • In a press statement from the Martian Picture Association of Alterion, Director Zerfig Mowbelfub stated that, "NASA needs to learn that it cannot indiscriminately share Martian movies on the internet as it pleases. Many Martians have worked very hard to create these whirlwinds, and recording them and then sharing them on the Internet is a violation of Galactic Copyright Law." The press release also stated that from now on Martians will search every NASA Lander for recording technology and confiscate it up
  • All I seem to be seeing in these posts are reasons why we couldn't do it, just because we don't have all the tools that we need to make a viable system at the moment doesn't mean that those tools could not be created.

    As it stands, we have ceramics that can withstand the tempature but I don't know how ceramics react under intense pressure. I understand that just a ceramic shell would not, in and of itself, be enough because as far as I know (although I'm no materials engineer) ceramics don't do that whole
  • We better be packing BFG's when we land there. With dust devils now being confirmed there's bound to be a Cyberdemon or two lurking around there.

    "Hey George, there's hellspawn on Mars... time to wage another crusade to rid the solar system of evil!"

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