Mars Rover Solves Metallic Object Mystery, Unearths Another 179
SchrodingerZ writes "Last week the Mars Curiosity Rover spotted a shiny metallic-looking object in the martian soil. This week scientists have confirmed that it is plastic that has fallen off the 1-ton rover. However, the discovery of this trans-planetary littering has opened up another mystery for the science team. On October 12th the rover took a sample of soil from the ground, feeding it into its Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instruments for analysis, and a picture of the hole dug by the rover's claw revealed metallic particles in the dirt. The sample was subsequently dropped due to fears that particles from the rover had made it into the dirt. Further study now suggests that the metallic particles are actually native to Mars, as the photo reveals that they are embedded in the soil in clumps. In 2007 the older rover Spirit found evidence of silica for the first time, more testing will occur over the next few days to determine truly if this is again just Curiosity's littler, or something more profound."
Crossing my fingers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Crossing my fingers (Score:5, Funny)
>> Nothing would kick-start a race to Mars like greed.
Well, that and the opportunity to litter.
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>> Nothing would kick-start a race to Mars like greed.
Well, that and the opportunity to litter.
Obviously we need to prep a mission ASAP to put up some "no littering!" signs.
Re:Crossing my fingers (Score:5, Funny)
Well, that and the opportunity to litter.
The word you're looking for is terraforming. Makes it sound all scientificy.
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I'm reminded of a Mars movie that I saw in my youth (I spent a few minutes trying to remember the name, but it escapes me... even with internet help). In this movie, the native (humanoid) martians drove (wind powered?) boats and the (helmet-less) astronauts threw their garbage everywhere - throwing into streams was popular, as I recall. I remember watching it to the end.
Does anyone remember this one?
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The screencaps I found for that movie look correct! Thanks for the quick answer!
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As well as possibly an underground lost civilization with ghosts and monsters n' shit.
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As well as possibly an underground lost civilization with ghosts and monsters n' shit.
Hopefully that big ass oxygen reactor is still working after all these years.
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Re:Crossing my fingers (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope it finds massive amounts of palladium, iridium or some mix of rare metals. Nothing would kick-start a race to Mars like greed. Unfortunately.
So by "Unfortunately" do you mean that the only reason we should go to the incredible expense and risk of visiting other planets is for purely academic or intellectual purposes? Is there anything of actual value to our planet Earth that we can glean from pure knowledge (and knowledge alone) of Mars? Say we learn more about the history of Mars. Humanity applies that information in exactly what way to better our species or improve our planet in some way?
At the end of the day, for it to be worthwhile beyond the science that we are doing right this minute with rovers, there has to be something of value on Mars. Real, tangible value. Materials that are rare on earth, a stopover for energy to reach other parts of the Solar System and beyond, a low gravity place to make materials that we can't produce on Earth, or even a "lifeboat" for humanity - at the end of the day there has to be something a step beyond just knowledge for the sake of knowledge.
Re:Crossing my fingers (Score:4, Insightful)
So by "Unfortunately" do you mean that the only reason we should go to the incredible expense and risk of visiting other planets is for purely academic or intellectual purposes? Is there anything of actual value to our planet Earth that we can glean from pure knowledge (and knowledge alone) of Mars? Say we learn more about the history of Mars. Humanity applies that information in exactly what way to better our species or improve our planet in some way?
Probably you should read Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars and see what the character Ann has to say about it before your next comment along these lines.
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Having actually read Red Mars, Ann was a flake and Robinson gave too much credence to the belief system in question
Ann's belief system has two parts. One, rocks don't abuse people. We can dispense with that part. Two, if you don't study Mars before you terraform it, you lose any chance to learn about its past. We will change Mars just by being there. Since Mars has been so rocky for so long it has been simplified, and we should be able to get simpler answers to some of our questions. When we answer questions about geology we learn more things that we can use, because we live on top of geology.
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Two, if you don't study Mars before you terraform it, you lose any chance to learn about its past
Which also doesn't work, because that hasn't been true of Earth either which is far more terraformed than Mars will be for a long time. We still learn a lot about the past, both our pasts and the geological past of the planet itself.
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A lot of important clues will be lost if we introduce a bunch of new stuff into Mars' atmosphere. It's not that we won't learn anything, it's that we could learn so much more by studying it for a while first, taking some really good samples and so on, maybe even tenting over some sites for later study.
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um... actually, knowledge for the sake of knowledge seems good enough to me.
I agree it sounds selfish while there are still people starving to death, but knowledge in itself is a worthy goal.
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It seems worthy to you, because you aren't the one paying for it.
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Is there anything of actual value to our planet Earth that we can glean from pure knowledge (and knowledge alone) of Mars?
The question itself precludes, by definition, the value of any answer.
Re:Crossing my fingers (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice strawman, there. I mean, it's good to know that to scoff at greed is equivalent to be interested in something "for purely academic or intellectual purposes". Perhaps the scoffing has something to do with the fact that greed as a motivator to do things has all sorts of very negative side-effects--economic bubbles are a big one. Or perhaps it has to do with the point that a view that moderation is a good thing and liable to produce much more desirable long-term results while greed tends to, in focusing on being an end unto itself, be an almost pointless exercise a lot of the time.
That's a pretty good begging the question. If you don't view "knowledge alone" as something "of actual value to our planet Earth", then there's little point in asking the question because no response that could be given would be acceptable to you. It entirely ignores that there are people who do, obviously, see value in knowledge alone and that a trip to Mars focused on expansion of humanity into the cosmos would be more than a pure knowledge expedition and not a greed motivated one.
Are you serious? The very fact that Mars once had an atmosphere, once had [possibly flowing] water, was once possibly habitable, etc and yet now lacks those things means its precisely a very good potential model of what Earth may become in the distant future. Knowing this and specifically examining what is left on Mars may do very much to help us figure out either to cope with those risks or to even entirely avoid them realizing that Mars is a cautionary tale of what may happen if humanity does nothing--although odds are good, humanity won't be around by then. In short, we'd be able to learn from the history of Mars just like how we learn from our own history, to use as a guide of what has and could happen to decide on what to do to avoid bad things from happening again.
At the end of the day, the real question is what one places value on. Is it shiny trinkets and beads? Or is it one's life to enjoy those shiny trinkets and beads? And if one is forward thinking enough to recognize this, maybe one may be forward thinking enough to consider one's grand children or great grand children and just exactly what steps are necessary, in general, for the survival of humanity. But, you know, that all depends on if you see any value in humanity.
Rare on Earth materials? Quite pointless except for a Mars colony itself. Stopover for energy for other pats of the Solar System and beyond? Not really sensical in any way since a free-floating platform would be actually maneuverable and would avoid almost all the escape velocity concerns. Low gravity for making materials? Uh...why not LEO and whatever gravity as needed through rotation instead of flying all the way to Mars and back? "Lifeboat" for humanity? Pretty well outside the scope of reasonable given the shear scope of reach to make Mar
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That's the handwaving feelgood version... In reality, it's bullshit. The pre-conditions that made Mars what it is (low insolation, no magnetic field due to a massive impactor, low gravity, etc...) aren't anything humans can either cause or survive if (by magic in a cou
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Uh uh. Learn to read moron, I said "cause *OR* survive".
Since we won't be evolving to meet such massive changes, once again you're off in clo
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at the end of the day there has to be something a step beyond just knowledge for the sake of knowledge.
History has proven over and over that there is not a single piece of "knowledge for the sake of knowledge" that hasn't turned out useful in one way or another later. Some people are too shortsighted and impatient.
To the skeptics of foundational research: Please take a look at the state of knowledge 300 years ago and try to find an example of genuine knowledge of that time that has no useful applications today. I don't claim it's impossible to find examples, but I'd submit that it's fairly hard. A typical ex
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I remember watching the old BBC show, 'Connections'
It was a fascinating take on history, but after a while I noted that almost every invention was first developed (at great cost) to aid some war effort (blow up stuff, target artillery, canned food for soldiers, refrigerated beef for soldiers...)
Even a vast amount of 'foundational' research that produced our beloved net-centric world was largely produced to provide decentralized communications following a nuclear war...
So, then 'profit' is probably a better
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Not this, again. You expect me to believe there's a Confederate ironclad space rocket, in a dry riverbed on Mars? Aliens are dying from a plague which is really caused by rare metal contamination of their underground water supply? A local martian warlord is suppressing the local population, while the ESA has a secret contract with them to store our nuclear waste in their disposal facility?
And right about then, Dr Who shows up. *cue the intro music*
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Indeed. Maybe it's diamonds ;)
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There's not a metal on Earth that, even if transport prices to/from Mars dropped by a factor of 100, would be worth fetching from Mars.
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There's not a metal on Earth that, even if transport prices to/from Mars dropped by a factor of 100, would be worth fetching from Mars.
Well duh, of course if it's a metal on Earth why send it to Mars?
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I think you have confused profitable with greed again...
Re:Crossing my fingers (Score:4, Informative)
It's not greed, it's simple math. No animal expends energy unless it can be reasonably sure the reward is more energy.
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How exactly does mating lead to such a reward? Are you trying to make a case for orgone energy?
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Nothing would kick-start a race to Mars like greed. Unfortunately.
Barsoomian women would have, but so far we haven't found them.
Re:Crossing my fingers (Score:5, Insightful)
Getting it back to Earth would cost far more than it's worth. Better to discover it in an asteroid.
With the technology we have now, yes. The point would be to develop better technology to make it cost effective, and you can bet some companies would at least try.
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It's a wonder so few people actually realize that introducing a massive supply of *insert rare thing here* makes that thing non-rare, bringing down cost.
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We're talking billions in up-front investment. You can't keep that kind of debt for long (see countless states, and here you wouldn't have the protections afforded to some states). An extra supply reduces prices, making it even more difficult to break even.
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It's a wonder so few people actually realize that introducing a massive supply of *insert rare thing here* makes that thing non-rare, bringing down cost.
Like Diamonds?
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If you're talking about synthetic diamonds, don't forget they have near 0 value because they're not rare. They're used in all kinds of industrial applications because they're relatively cheap for the benefit.
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Natural diamonds are not rare, it is simply that the people who have the largest supplies of them (de Beers, the Russians and now some folks in Canada) create an artificial scarcity by controlling the amount that they release onto the market
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Just like any gold rush; the companies that supply the provisions stand the biggest chance to get rich.
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What's the stock ticker for the Weyland-Yutani corporation?
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Re:Crossing my fingers (Score:5, Informative)
The advantage isn't taking metals back. It's using them on Mars. If there really is even just metallic iron, that'd be a HUGE benefit for colonization. Trivial to mine (scoop dust, blow over rotating magnetic collector), trivial to process (I once sketched out the resource chains to run a blast furnace on Mars and it's just staggering - if this is metallic iron and it's pure enough to be structurally sound if simply melted and cast, it'd be huge deal).
If it applies to metals other than iron, all the more the benefit. Anything you can do to reduce the massive resource chains needed by modern tech could be a godsend for actual colonization.
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I once sketched out the resource chains to run a blast furnace on Mars and it's just staggering - if this is metallic iron and it's pure enough to be structurally sound if simply melted and cast, it'd be huge deal.
Well, it's a pretty big deal just to melt and cast iron when you're on a foreign planet with no life and CO2 for an atmosphere. And making modern useful things out of iron actually requires steel alloys, which means having other metals available and being able to control carbon content of the melt. When there's no fuel on the planet, that means you must use electric power. It takes HUGE amounts of power to run an arc furnace, and moderately use amounts to run an induction furnace. Millions of watts eith
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Nuclear power doesn't need to be carried if you can source the components there.
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Nanobots: the modern substitute for "magic".
Do you realize how hard it'd be to build self-replicating robot at any scale, that has to mine and refine and cast every component in itself, from structural components to pneumatic fluids to computer chips? And it gets orders of magnitude harder at the nanoscale.
Re:Crossing my fingers (Score:5, Insightful)
The advantage isn't taking metals back. It's using them on Mars. If there really is even just metallic iron, that'd be a HUGE benefit for colonization.
However, without trade, the colony will always be dependent on its parent nation. And that's not really a colony, it's just an outpost. A really expensive outpost.
The advantage with asteroids (and to some extent lunar development), is that you can serve other markets. Even if it's not cost effective to bring the product back to Earth, as long as it's cheaper than launching from Earth, there should be a small but growing market for in-orbit delivery. Starting with fuel, then air/water, then bulk shielding and crude structures, and developing through more complex manufactured materials. And each stage also feeds back on itself, if you can supply fuel cheaper than Earth-launch, you lower your own running costs, and make whole new activities possible in space which creates whole new markets...
Such a process, once started, should then develop naturally, with each stage paying for itself and creating a market for the next stage; without requiring constant funding through traditional space agencies. [Although it will also give space agencies more bang for their buck. As well as making space exploration easier to justify to the average voter, and the very average politicians.] Until one day you read about how many people permanently live in space, and you realise that we are finally genuinely out there.
Mars won't do that. It will always be a "program", a drain. Historically, colonies like that always fail.
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The cost of bringing something back to earth is peanuts.
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I meant the total cost of the returned product vs its locally mined competitors. Platinum group metals extracted from asteroids may currently be much more expensive than Earth-mined PGMs, so there's no market for bringing asteroid-PGMs down to Earth. But to get anything from Earth into space adds thousands of dollars per kilogram, changing the cost equation dramatically. So the initial market for anything produced in space is to use it in space.
(Of course, once we have in-situ fuel, reusable cargo transport
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the initial market for anything produced in space is to use it in space
Yes. We have the makings of a frontier economy. I think finished products will be exported from space way, way before raw materials.
Metal madness (Score:2)
Differentiated metals on Mars almost certainly came from asteroid impacts. (*) So discovering rare elemental metals on Mars means that you'll find it on asteroids (ie, not just on metallic asteroids, impacts mean the average carbonaceous will have a good coating of metallic elements.)
(* Unless there's some native metal crapping lifeform on Mars. Which is also okay.)
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Unless there's some native metal crapping lifeform on Mars.
Been reading Ender in Exile?
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So I guess what you're saying is that you're certain NASA is a waste of money. Well, I doubt you have any clue what you are talking about and it makes me very uncertain about our future...
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Wow. This is amazing. A random poster on some unscreened tech blog knows more about planetary science than all of those smarty-type folks at JPL and NASA.
What are the odds of this sort of thing happening?
You saw it here first folks!
Re:Crossing my fingers (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? Every worthy human endeavor needs to make money?
What an unpleasant and shallow philosophy you have there.
traveling wherever (Score:3)
Might I recommend, as much as is possible, pack your trash.
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Yea! what ever happened to "Take only pictures. Leave only footsteps." ?
I mean, imprinting "JPL" in morse code over and over in the martian dust counts as footsteps, I guess, but....
Re:traveling wherever (Score:4, Funny)
Might I recommend, as much as is possible, pack your trash.
On the contrary. If I had the chance to go to Mars today, I'd take with me:
A recent newspaper, a can of beer and a half-eaten sandwich.
Then I'd place them somewhere were Curiosity was likely to spot it, and return to Earth silently.
And probably run around with a huge grin on my face for the rest of my life.
Certainly (Score:2)
You know what it is (Score:1)
It is for now, Unobtanium. ;)
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You mean Bullwankium. AKA the stuff the drops out the backside of a politician or upper management type or MBA.
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Just like ununoctium, which once octiated is virtually impossible to un-octiate.
Re:You know what it is (Score:5, Informative)
Avatar didn't invent "Unobtainium". The precise origin is unknown, but it goes back at least to the 1950's and has been traditionally used as a stand in for any material that has all the desired properties for an application (strength, weight, heat resistance, etc.) but that doesn't actually exist. So it's not called "Unobtainium" because it's virtually unobtainable, but because it just plain doesn't exist. Movies seem to have picked it up as a MacGuffin. It was used for the magical material the drill was made of in _The Core_ for example.
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During my career electronic product design it has generally been used to describe flash memory during the many times that supply has gone on allocation.
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Oh, mystery substances with the properties necessary to make otherwise impossible things work have been around since antiquity. The oldest I can think of offhand is Adamant, but I'm sure there are even older ones. Referring to them as unobtainium started somewhere, however. I don't know exactly where, but the term seems to have been around for at least 60 years.
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"the" movie?
unobtanium is a classic, present in dozens of works of literature, TV shows and films.
Gold! (Score:5, Insightful)
Nuggets the size of your fist! Don't tell anyone!
There. That always works to get the next territory settled.
Re:Gold! (Score:5, Funny)
Nuggets the size of your fist! Don't tell anyone!
If your nuggets are the size of your fist, you should probably tell your doctor.
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Nuggets the size of your fist! Don't tell anyone!
There. That always works to get the next territory settled.
What's the equivalent of jeans on Mars? Better start investing now...
Every hiker knows... (Score:1)
Leave no trace. Maybe we can do an LNT workshop at NASA.
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I'm sure there's fragments from the sole of your hiking boats everywhere you've been, and little pieces of plastic from gear that's broken off without you even noticing ;)
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Why does a bear get to leave that disgusting load wherever he wants but if I leave some delicious Dorritos suddenly I'M the bad guy?
how about ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Drive the rover as far away from the Mars Garbage Gyre as possible before sampling the soil.
Otherwise it's like taking a dump in your own back yard and gardening it in.
Re:how about ... (Score:5, Funny)
I call that sustainable living.
Parts falling off? (Score:5, Funny)
Are they sure it isn't a Land Rover?
Re:Parts falling off? (Score:5, Funny)
I know what the metal particles are... (Score:1)
The beer can Opportunity will find tomorrow: mine (Score:1)
Just a warning about that beer can.
The Rainier logo gives it away, I think.
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No, not a beer can.
A huge Coca-Cola sign. It's what the Allies found as they captured island after island during WWII.
I wonder if the size will be limited to 24 oz.
Bad summary. (Score:2, Informative)
Curiosity did not reveal "metallic particles in the dirt." As the linked article states, it found "bright" particles. Bright does not mean metal!
Cartoon? (Score:2)
...and somewhere in there is a metaphor for human endeavor
Knotted strings? (Score:2)
But when I see all those strings hand-knotted to tie the rover's (unshielded) cable, I feel a chill on my neck!
Is that all the technology we could sport to have a reliable and durable rover?
It's just my
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Proof! Rover was designed by Apple! (Score:2)
NASA will issue an apology letter "well metal scratches and plastic flakes off, just like our competitors".
But seriously, I know I can go to the beach with my niece and nephew and dig holes with $1 plastic dollar store shoves and not leave bits of it behind.
PhD PHB? (Score:2)
NASA is just like my boss: ignore the primary mission and instead chase after shiny GUI's and elusive sparkling rumors.
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no. Only matter ON the planet.
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No. That's the part that doesn't matter.
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*evil laugh*
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Hey, haz waste is getting expensive to dispose of!
Actually, I do kind of wonder if it is getting to the point where it would have been cheaper just to launch rad waste into space rather than pay for all the studies and eventual construction costs associated with building a permanent disposal site.
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Seriously...
Was the damn thing built in China?