NASA's Gypsum Find Clear Evidence There Was Water On Mars 162
First time accepted submitter RCC42 writes "The Opportunity rover has found evidence that liquid water once flowed on Mars, through the discovery of gypsum — a mineral that can only be formed in the presence of water. Though other evidence in the past has suggested highly acidic water on Mars, this is the first evidence for water with a pH suitable for life as we know it."
how much gypsum? (Score:5, Interesting)
Are we talking just a thin crust, or are we talking "gypsum quarry" size formations?
The reason I ask, is gypsum contains absurd quantities of chemically bound water. If mars has a higher calcium ion concentration than earth does, and had liquid oceans at one time, it is possible that with the carbon dioxide rich atmosphere and lack of techtonic plate movement that a sizable quantity of the ocean turned into "concrete" rather than drying up.
This would mean that much of the light elements (hydrogen, etc) might have escaped being blown off the atmosphere.
This is exciting news for science fiction writers that like to dream about terraforming. Creating techtonic activity would create the geomagnetic dynamo the planet needs, and as a consequence of the subduction and volcanism, huge quantities of water vapor would be expelled as a volcanic gas.
About all the planet would need would be ammonia, for the missing nitrogen. (Doesn't titan have an ammonia atmosphere? Wink, nudge.)
This does not mean the planet would go from lifeless desert to habitable overnight, as the gasses relased would be inhospitable to oxygen dependant life like us, but certain algae species like chlorella can survive in 100% C02 atmospheric concentrations as long as there is sunlight and water. Chlorella is well researched, fully genomically sequenced, and already has engineered varieties. A strain intended to rapidly convert the atmosphere to something a bit less toxic would actually be fairly plausible.
Re:how much gypsum? (Score:4, Funny)
Creating techtonic activity would create the geomagnetic dynamo the planet needs
I'll get right on that and let you know when I'm done so we can move to the next phase.
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If you want to get all touchy feely in your story, this would be a good constructive use of the earth's nuclear arsenal.
Plate techtonics is at least partially powered by radiological decay.
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Well, the difficulties of boring large holes down the center of Mars to set off the nukes (doesn't do any good to nuke the surface) do present some problems.
And the fact that Mars simply isn't massive enough to maintain that heat anyway. Any terraforming project would be short-term as Mars would rapidly cool off and lose it's magnetic shield again.
Seems to me Mars needs to bulk up. Using spacecraft to redirect large asteroids into Mars using the gravity tractor method seems like a viable way to bulk it u
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Just took the time to put in in decimal, just for fun.
In decimal notation that's as follows.
Mars + all of the Asteroid belt = 645,050,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg
Earth = 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg
So, as you can see, Mars would still be an order of magnitude smaller than Earth, but MUCH larger than it's current size if we were to bombard it with the contents of the asteroid belt, thus adding to it's mass.
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Re:how much gypsum? (Score:5, Interesting)
Titan is larger than earth's moon.
Mars is smaller than the Earth.
Smashing titan into mars would probably be a bad thing. (A very, very bad thing. That is, unless you like the idea of scattering huge chunks of rock into space. See for instance, the collision simulation for the hypothesis of earth's moon's formation.)
Better, would be to go ahead and nudge the moon out of saturns orbit, have it fall into the inner solar system, sweep a wide orbit of the sun, then fall into orbit around mars.
Best to use a trans ecliptic orbit, so that the falling body doesn't adversely effect other inner planet systems.
Once in martian orbit, titan's gravity would cause intense mantle heating of the red planet. It is likely that titan's atmosphere would freeze and snow out after being dislodged from saturn's orbit, due to the lack of tidal heating while it transits. Mars' tidal forces would be miniscule compared to saturn's, though being in the habitable zone might be enough to heat titan enough to reconstitute the atmosphere. Unknown.
It is concievable that with both bodies in the habitable zone, that both bodies could be actively terraformed.
Titan is presumed to have a silicate core, and not an iron nickle one like mars and earth. This means that it wouldn't disrupt the new martian magnetosphere. (Like our moon doesn't.)
Mars is more massive than titan, and if the atmosphere reconstitutes, mars might just rip it off titan.
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Titan's atmosphere is mostly nitrogen. That would definitely not be frozen at Mars' distance from the sun. It extends a long way out though, so if you put Titan in a reasonably close orbit of Mars it would probably transfer. And there's lots of it.
Moving the planet might be tricky though. Especially if you don't want to lose the atmosphere.
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If you have the capability to move a planet out of orbit and in the direction you want it to go, given the distance you should be able to fine tune the impact velocity using gravity wells and orbit corrections to somewhere just above zero, and then just wait for Titan to uh, melt, on to Mars over a period of centuries.
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About all the planet would need would be ammonia, for the missing nitrogen. (Doesn't titan have an ammonia atmosphere? Wink, nudge.)
You're right. There is a sci-fi novel in that: The domestic house apes of planet Earth fling Titan into Mars. Alien microbes from Titan thrive and mutate on Mars, becoming toxic to hoo-mahns. "Oh, Jordy Verrill, you lunkhead!"
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Are we talking just a thin crust, or are we talking "gypsum quarry" size formations?
FTA: The gypsum vein — which scientists spotted last month and nicknamed “Homestake” — is approximately the width of a human thumb and about 16 to 20 inches long.
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Also FTA: there are large dunes of gypsum sand in the north polar region. Possibly there are large pans of the stuff, as the sand had to come from somewhere.
Re:how much gypsum? (Score:5, Interesting)
That was ice.
This is gypsum. Gypsum is a conretion type sedimentary rock made of chemically bound water, sulfuric acid, and calcium ions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gypsum [wikipedia.org]
It is mostly water by molar weight.
If heated in the mantle by subduction, it would thermally decompose into calcium sulfide, sulfur dioxide, and copoius quantities of water vapor.
If the formations are "large, and very deep", it would go a long way toward explaining where the ocean went.
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I reckon there'll be huge limestone caves.
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Reading comprehension is difficult for you?
I said, the atmosphere would inflat *as a consequence* of plate techtonics.
Plate techtonics is the result of convection currents in the mantle.
Convection currents in the mantle create the geomagnetic dynamo.
The geomagnetic dynamo creates a strong planetary magnetic field.
Venus lacks a magnetic field because it is too hot at the planet's surface to have mantle convection. This, no dynamo, and no magnetic field.
Mars lacks sufficient mantle heat to power mantle convec
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Nasa says there are dunes of the stuff. So, more than just a crusty deposition in rock fissures.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/08dec_slamdunk/ [nasa.gov]
As for starting tectonic activity, a large orbiting body would start it up through mechanical heating. We are talking science fiction here.
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Well, yes. IF you could somehow find a way to move an entire moon from the grip of a gas giant, then you could do that.
Some of us prefer more practical methods though. Simply bulking Mars up with a steady diet of asteroids gravity tractor-ed in using robotic spacecraft is a FAR more practical method, and much less risky than attempting to move a body as large as Titan all in one go.
Not only do you get the advantage of adding all those variable content asteroids, the bombardment heats the planet up creatin
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Uhm... initiating tectonic activity would *create* a planetary magnetic field.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamo_theory [wikipedia.org]
As the article mentions, it is the convection currents in the conductive material (molten mantle and outer core, in the case of earth) which produces the magnetic field.
You cannot have tectonic activity without subsurface convection, so initiating tectonic activities on mars defacto implies a magnetic field will become extant.
I have explained this 3 times now.
Obligatory XKCD (Score:4, Funny)
XKCD [xkcd.com]
As thing go... (Score:3)
runaway climate, oceans evaporate, a couple of million years later some beings from Europe may wonder, was there ever life on this desert planet? And a next round of silliness starts again.
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Beings from Europe? Don't be ridiculous.
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Beings from Europe? Don't be ridiculous.
Duh! Educate yourself about Jupiter's moons or watch Space Odysee 2001 -> Arthur C. Clarke, he was right on
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Maybe if you knew what the name actually was you would get the joke too?
Re:As thing go... (Score:5, Informative)
Educate yourself about Jupiter's moons
Not sure about the GP but when I went to school Europe was a continent and Europa was a Jovian moon. OTOH, geopolitical maps have changed quite a bit since the 1960's, so maybe France is obiting Jupiter now.
Re:As thing go... (Score:5, Informative)
English makes the distinction, a lot of other countries don't. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany at least "europa" is both the continent and the Jovian moon. Took me a long time to get used to writing Europe...
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There:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/17/europa-water-jupiter-moon-photo-video_n_1099463.html [huffingtonpost.com]
Drywall industry rejoices! (Score:3)
Now I know who will be the first to industrialize Mars.
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Dan Halen Sheet Rock International?
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That's nice (Score:2)
...but there are a couple of moons with surfaces covered in water ice RIGHT NOW which have liquid water below the surface, so it's hard for me to get excited.
prevous water is not news (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Now we HAVE to go. (Score:5, Funny)
But if NASA finds a sentient life lathe-and-plaster-using civilization underground, such advanced technology as drywall would violate the prime directive.
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Forget the prime directive. It's all about suppression by making sure the advanced stay ahead of the primitive.
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The dunes in the White Sands national monument can supposedly supply the construction industry with drywall for 1000 years.
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Re:We Can Find Water on MARS, But NO Nukes in Iran (Score:5, Funny)
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Actually, I think they commandeered the command-and-control protocols.
Much more sophisticated than Martians.
Re:We Can Find Water on MARS, But NO Nukes in Iran (Score:4, Funny)
Actually, I think the drone malfunctioned, went into auto-mode and landed itself in the desert. Then an Iranian sheepherder stumbled across it and called authorities.
It's an open question why Iranians graze sheep in the desert though...
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It's an open question why Iranians graze sheep in the desert though...
Perhaps, as is the case in Australia, grazing sheep on marginal land causes the desert. Once you have broken the environment you get to keep the pieces.
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Perhaps, as is the case in Australia, grazing sheep on marginal land causes the desert
I think you mean goats, which are not a big problem in Oz. Goats eat everything, sheep only do that if they are starving and even then there are a lot of plants they won't touch. That plus the fact the Aussie desert has not grown significantly since the introduction of domesticated animals.
Re:We Can Find Water on MARS, But NO Nukes in Iran (Score:4, Insightful)
From what I recall, goats will eat a lot of things but they -way- they eat the grass tends to leave it intact/alive to resprout, however sheep gnaw it down so far that it kills the grass.
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It is probably simpler to think that they jammed the control frequency/frequencies in such a manner that the device went into a failure mode. Most UAV things these days have some sort of auto-landing logic that will land it safely if it loses communication. I would think a military aircraft would tolerate loss of communications for a bit longer than other civilian devices but then the question is self-destruct or land? At some point without communications you can't just fly in a straight line.
I seriously
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Actually, drones like the Predator, Heron, Reaper and Global Hawk need to be manually landed by a local pilot, not sure about the Beast of Kandahar.
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If I built a drone like that, I'd have it track the jamming signal and "land" on it at full speed.
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First, in the release of Department of State memos a year ago, we read of several countries and the US government admitting to a belief in the existence of an Iranian nuclear program. While the Arab Spring protests have probably trumped it for a time, it's worth noting that several countries, particularly Saudi Arabia [reuters.com], viewed Iran's nuclear program as their most pressing foreign policy issue (over such things as Israel). They have since threatened [worldpoliticsreview.com] to
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The US Dept of State is a reliable authority of unbiased information and analysis? Christ! You would have made a great Soviet.
Then there's the entirely discredited IAEA citing. This was shredded. Another sad, neocon fairytale, like Condoleeza's "Smoking Gun in the form of a Mushroom Cloud". Oh. She represents an example of State Dept. accuracy and lack of bias, herself.
Unbelievable, fabricated distortions about "nano-diamonds"
Why do you witchhunt Iran, when the US is the evil regime that kills children
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The US Dept of State is a reliable authority of unbiased information and analysis? Christ! You would have made a great Soviet.
They weren't trying to be. That's one of the strengths of these memos.
Then there's the entirely discredited IAEA citing. This was shredded. Another sad, neocon fairytale, like Condoleeza's "Smoking Gun in the form of a Mushroom Cloud". Oh. She represents an example of State Dept. accuracy and lack of bias, herself.
Discredited by whom? I won't take such claims seriously unless I can evaluate the merit of the claim.
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"This is not the false positive you are looking for..."
Re:Now we HAVE to go. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want oil, go to titan.
Lakes of liquid ethane.
Transport cost might be a bit more than you bargained for... what with operating a tanker in orbit of a gas giant and all......
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There is no o2 which is why titan doesn't burst into a huge fireball...
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Then we need to lace its upper atmosphere with o2 before igniting.
Sounds dangerous, send congress....
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Re:Now we HAVE to go. (Score:5, Interesting)
Humans can do in an hour what would take a robot a month.
Humans can make judgements.
There is strong scientific, and techical breakthgrough that send a person to mars will bring.
And yes, also send robots.
Send some humans and some backhoe to where we think the deepest water would have been. Dig some bigas ass holes and see what we can find.
See if there is an evidence of large species about 200 meters down.
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I want to clarify that I can't think of anything more important to our species than the ability to leave this planet indefinitely. What we have learned about our universe and the geological history of this planet is that eventually something will destroy Earth or at least alter it so drastically that it cannot support human life any longer. The big questions are when and how that will happen. Maybe a giant asteroid will hit us, Yellowstone may blow it's top a
Re:Now we HAVE to go. (Score:4, Informative)
A human would die in two minutes on mars. oh, you mean with TONS of supplies send humans? forget it, robots win.
The energy requirements alone of a human compared to the robot are fearsome.
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Can a human walk around on Mars for days without any extra supplies?
Yes. Oh, you mean can the human walk around without carrying what they need? Doesn't matter. Neither can the rover.
Humans are just another payload with moderately peculiar needs and infrastructure.
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The issue is that humans require much more useless (in terms of science) load compared to the robot. Beyond the body, the robot only needs power and heat/insulation compared to humans which would need food, water, air, and the tools to do the job which would be on the robot.
Even so, humans would be more efficient per kg of payload than the robot would. The problem is simply a higher ante for manned missions than unmanned ones. And current efforts on Mars simply aren't considered valuable enough to commit humans to it yet.
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Even so, humans would be more efficient per kg of payload than the robot would.
I don't think you understand how much payload would be required just to support the human. For example, the rovers produce less than 1 kWh/day even under optimal conditions. In the winter when it goes into hibernation it's down to less than 0.16 kWh/day or like a 6-7 watt light bulb. How many solar panels do you think it'd take to sustain a human?
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Re:Now we HAVE to go. (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think you understand how much payload would be required just to support the human.
It's on the order of 100 tonnes per person. More mass will be needed overall, but that can be obtained from Mars itself.
For example, the rovers produce less than 1 kWh/day even under optimal conditions. In the winter when it goes into hibernation it's down to less than 0.16 kWh/day or like a 6-7 watt light bulb. How many solar panels do you think it'd take to sustain a human?
3000 calories (for a very active person) corresponds to roughly 3.5 kWh/day. The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) generates about 2.5 kWh/day and about 45-50 kWh/day of waste heat (with half life of almost 90 years).
Of course, that does measure true power needs. Humans need to eat food, so there's going to be at least a factor of ten loss converting solar energy into food energy. On the plus side, that can be grown, say in a pressurized greenhouse or LED-lit chamber. Near Earth the rule of thumb is 100 square meters (m2) is roughly enough garden space to feed an active person (and ten times what area you need to provide oxygen for that person). Since solar intensity drops by half, then one would expect that 200 m2 probably would do on Mars and there are various tricks to drop that amount.
In exchange for this modest mass and complexity, you get the best tools, that humanity has to offer. Keep in mind also that unmanned probes such as the MSL are increasing in power consumption. So it's reasonable to expect that power consumption over the mission will enter the range where manned missions are viable. And that's an additional aspect of manned missions. They have a lot of synergies with high power missions.
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The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) generates about 2.5 kWh/day and about 45-50 kWh/day of waste heat (with half life of almost 90 years).
Yes, curling up next to a lump of plutonium will make you warm but you'll also die from radiation poisoning. Add in shielding and a closed loop heat transfer system and it doesn't look nearly as good. Works damn well on robotic probes though.
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Yes, curling up next to a lump of plutonium will make you warm but you'll also die from radiation poisoning. Add in shielding and a closed loop heat transfer system and it doesn't look nearly as good. Works damn well on robotic probes though.
This isn't a serious issue since one can, as you say, shield the plutonium and so on. A serious issue is that radiothermal generators (RTGs) are limited in size and power output because one has to dissipate the heat from them. That's why small fission plants or solar power arrays are studied instead.
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I am not a proponent of space research right now, I kind think we should focus or efforts on more terrestrial matters. That said if were to send someone to Mars or go back the moon for that matter there is some science in it, or at least some engineering advances in it.
If were to discover a place worth going, the two main problems are where do find enough energy to get your there fast enough. Figuring out exactly what you need to take with you and in what form has a major impact on our selections of solut
Offsite backup Re:Now we HAVE to go. (Score:2, Insightful)
I kind think we should focus or efforts on more terrestrial matters
Uh... offsite backup IS a terrestrial matter.
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The thing is that funding our 'terrestrial matters' (by which I think you mean the wars and bailouts) has been way more expensive than all the space programs put together.
Space research creates jobs and develops new technology which we can then use to further an economy. War simply destroys economies to profit a very limited set of people (those selling weapons and weapon systems) and although they also develop new technology, they do so by cannibalizing actual scientific research.
The terrestrial matters we
Re:Now we HAVE to go. (Score:4, Insightful)
Frontiers need powerful symbols, and robots don't cut it. Pragmaticism is all well and good, but you need to keep people motivated enough - and not just scientists, but all those others that feed and clothe them.
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Re:In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
Persians first calculated the volume of the earth, as a sphere. Invented spherical trigonometry, and all kinds of things.
Remember all that "Arab scientists and mathematicians" kind of talk? None of 'em were arabs. Mostly Persians, with roots in Khorasan - writing in Arabic.
It's similar to calling Sir Issac Newton a "Latin Physicist" because of the language used in the "Principia".
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
Needless to say, Iranian civilization ain't what it used to be. This a major oil producing country with such inept leadership that they have to import refined fuels.
Persia's high point was a long time ago.
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Needless to say, Iranian civilization ain't what it used to be. This a major oil producing country with such inept leadership that they have to import refined fuels.
Persia's high point was a long time ago.
That's really a sad comment since it's only been 60 years that they were a democracy [wikipedia.org]. If someone didn't see that link coming then they should stop watching the bobbleheads on Fox.
Clarification on Khorasan (Score:5, Informative)
"Needless to say, Iranian civilization ain't what it used to be."
I just have to clarify that Khorasan is modern day Afghanistan - It was part it was part of Persia, but it isn't Iran. Its a common misconception that people think Persia = Iran. In fact, Persia included (at a time) a lot, of not all of, the ---istan countries. "istan" is the the Persian suffix meaning land. Analogous to Scotland, Ireland.
My two cents of knowledge.. free for you!
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but what about the last 500 years?
The first recorded person to ever fly was from that part of the country, but that was like 600 years ago.
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Yes, but it was dead. By studying the Greeks they made some significant mathematical and science discoveries.
The Romans, OTOH, ignored the Greeks and we got a dark ages for their lack of effort.
Re:In other news... (Score:4)
"Greeks" themselves were often native inhabitants of Asia Minor, Levant and Lower Egypt.
They were also the recipients, refiners and extenders of numerical sciences with origin in Babylon and the Indus.
Re:In other news... (Score:4, Funny)
"It's similar to calling Sir Issac Newton a "Latin Physicist" because of the language used in the "Principia"."
Ofcourse not.... he was a Persian physicist.
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Eratosthenes [wikipedia.org] begs to differ.
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Nope. :-)
He was the second coming of Jesus Christ and a Chemyst.
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We call it Arabic/Islamic *placeholder* because thats how we historically categorize civilization, by naming it after the Language or Religion that defined the culture.
And after 650 Persia was part of that civilization.
Those and Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, etc, etc.
As an approach, that's way too crude - similar to lumping together, say, Christian Levant and Europe, circa 500 CE, on the grounds of common religion.
True, Persia converted to Islam, but their civilization and culture was always very much separate from Arabs and Ottomans.
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The Persians WERE the Zoroastrians, and from India for that matter. The last vestiges of the religion is now the Parsi in India. Islam destroyed it.
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Although read in context it makes sense. Oh well, mod me down appropriately! o_O
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-I'm just sayin'
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Just NOW?
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If that's the water source, I'd hate to meet the bladder's owner.
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So how did the ice and water vapor get there then ... ?
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Re:Water Is Proof Of Water, Before Gypsum Is (Score:5, Insightful)
To think that it goes from solid to gas instantly without any liquid form on a planet (Mars) where there are dry river beds, would be logical.
Pressure is below the triple point for water so yes, it is logical to not expect liquid water on the exposed surface of Mars under current conditions. Ice directly sublimates to vapor.
It's also worth noting that liquid water could be a temporary thing maybe occurring when ice is melted by volcanism. That could result in the river valleys without any long term water presence. Or the river valley could be caused by flowing carbon dioxide. The presence of gypsum supports the your explanation that flowing water was present on Mars at some point.
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I havn't seen any one describe why gypsum can't be formed in the absence of water
Gypsum is like beer, in that it's main ingredient is water. Can beer form without water?
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Wait, did someone say they found beer on Mars? Very interesting development...
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Flotsam Jetsam - Thrash Metal
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It's not common that you'll hear a scientist say this, but that is absolutely impossible. It is not possible under any circumstances to form gypsum in the absence of water. Gypsum is a hydrous mineral - it contains molecules of water in it's structure. So even if you took Feynman's trip "all the way to the bottom", you'd have to assemble an atom of sulphur and four of oxygen (to form a sulphate ion ; you're in Feynman territory,