On the Far Side of the Moon, China's Rover Discovers a Strangely-Colored Gel-Like Substance (cnet.com) 67
An anonymous reader quotes CNET:
China's Yutu-2 rover, launched as part of the Chang'e 4 mission, is the first-ever robot to explore the far side of the moon. Since landing in January, it's snapped gorgeous views of the lunar surface and made one unexpected discovery. Now, it's made another surprising find: an unusual substance with a "gel-like" appearance hidden inside a crater...
Three days into day 8, a member of the Chang'e 4 team was reviewing images taken during by the rover and noticed a strangely colored material, distinct from the gray soil around it. So, the team instead turned its attention toward the substance and sent the rover towards the crater for a better look. The Yutu-2 "drive diary" says the team commanded the rover to point its spectrometer, a device which can evaluate the composition of materials, towards the unusual substance. The team didn't indicate what the substance might be and they haven't shared an image of the weird material. The team did, however, share an image of the rover heading for the crater to have a gander at what's inside.
I know you're thinking aliens but Andrew Jones, a journalist reporting on the Chinese space program, wrote that one possible explanation is that the gel-like substance is melted glass, created after a meteor strike.
Three days into day 8, a member of the Chang'e 4 team was reviewing images taken during by the rover and noticed a strangely colored material, distinct from the gray soil around it. So, the team instead turned its attention toward the substance and sent the rover towards the crater for a better look. The Yutu-2 "drive diary" says the team commanded the rover to point its spectrometer, a device which can evaluate the composition of materials, towards the unusual substance. The team didn't indicate what the substance might be and they haven't shared an image of the weird material. The team did, however, share an image of the rover heading for the crater to have a gander at what's inside.
I know you're thinking aliens but Andrew Jones, a journalist reporting on the Chinese space program, wrote that one possible explanation is that the gel-like substance is melted glass, created after a meteor strike.
glass (Score:2)
it's glass.
Re:glass - Do not taunt the Moon, OK? (Score:2)
Re: glass (Score:2)
watch out! [youtu.be]
Are they going to... (Score:3, Funny)
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Of course not. They're going to crash a satellite into it at 45,000mph. For Science!
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A waste product would be a good guess, after all they would not have to keep observation secret from a primitive human species on the far side of the moon, as one face always faces the earth and the other face would represent a far higher level of social development. You could also say, our moon or theirs, well, who got there first.
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Nah, alien marshmallow. The Greek guy with the Electric Hair will have a field day with this.
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No, they'll send it to a camp for "re-education".
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poke it with a stick.
So you're not saying it's the blob, but...
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Enough is never enough... of the Stuff! [wikipedia.org]
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Only if they have an 11 feet pole onboard.
Re:It figures (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe if they find life on Uranus
No way man. I've had it bleached.
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This is simplistic and either racist or a nasty estimation of an entire country's system of life. Unfortunately, it's also basically spot-on.
Where is it? (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't see anything gel or glass-like in the image. Where is this supposed to be?
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At least read the summary dude!
The team didn't indicate what the substance might be and they haven't shared an image of the weird material. The team did, however, share an image of the rover heading for the crater to have a gander at what's inside.
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they haven't shared an image of the weird material
Brace for disappointment.
Re: Where is it? (Score:1)
Yep. Would not be the first time theyâ(TM)ve made up science.
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I tried to read the original blog post on which this article is based and I'm not sure any of it is accurate at all.
The blog says something about they saw an object with an unusual lustre, and seems to imply that it is visible in one of the photos they posted. I couldn't see anything in the photos either but maybe it's obvious to a lunar rock expert.
I'm not sure where they get the "gel-like" description from, to me that seems like extrapolation from the visual description of it being a bit shiny. My Chinese
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It must be the goose sauce.
what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
So, Venom. (Score:3)
n/t
Obligatory... (Score:3)
There is no far side of the Moon, really. Matter of fact, it's all far.
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There is a far side - the side we never see from Earth. There is no dark side (except on progressive rock albums where it is a metaphor).
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"Dark" in the sense of unexplored, not unilluminated.
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(except on progressive rock albums where it is a metaphor).
There is only one progressive rock album known to be "the dark side of the moon".
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Hmmm...maybe we should start the Flat Moon Society. Dingbats all over U.S. will find some soulmates to contemplate their miserable grasp of basic science.
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Glass could be alien life (Score:2)
Glass is made of silicon, one of the prime suspects as a basis for life.
It's simple, common, and like carbon has 4 available bonds, allowing for the ring like structure so common among organic chemicals.
Re:Glass could be alien life (Score:5, Informative)
Was a popular notion decades ago but in wikipedia you'll see some of the objections to silicon based life. Silicon does have 4 bonds but only get bond with a small fraction of the common atoms that carbon can. And oxidizing just gets you glass rather than carbon dioxide... to many silicon compounds are inert, not like the soluable and flexible things carbon organics have.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
telling that we have over 900 times the silicon in earth's crust as carbon, but we have carbon based life. Some living things have silicon compounds as structural material.... nice inert stuff.
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by expanding my diet my farts soon will attain sentience
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yeah, borax mines.
Yet they won't post any details (Score:3)
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What about when the Soviet Union proved we didn't go there?
Oh, wait, they didn't do that... they didn't even try.
Re:Yet they won't post any details (Score:4, Insightful)
Then we would have proof of intelligent extraterrestrial life. Because for decades we've been firing lasers at the Apollo landing sites relying on the retroreflectors the astronauts left there [wikipedia.org] to measure the distance to the moon to a precision of about 2 cm. If the astronauts didn't put those reflectors there, someone did.
For some reason the conspiracy theorists simply ignore this experiment. Classic denial - ignoring anything which doesn't support or contradicts your predetermined conclusion.
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Conspiracy theories suggest that the mirrors were placed by robots. They claim that it was thought too difficult and dangerous to send humans, so only robot probes ever went and that's how all the equipment got up there, and how they faked the transmissions from the moon.
I think they ripped the last bit off from one of the Soviet Zond test missions that send some animals and recordings of the human voice to the moon and back. Apparently the CIA initially thought it was a manned mission due to the recordings
Re: Yet they won't post any details (Score:1)
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The USA did the rock collection as accepted into the 1970's and China has data that does match now?
The USA did not do the rock collection as presented. China now has the real data?
The USA had the correct data in the 1070's and China is having problems now?
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The first lasers got used a few years before that ~ 1962
Retroreflectors and astronauts where not the first needed to do that
Lunar Laser Ranging experiment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The Great Link (Score:2)
Better catch up on your Star Trek: Deep Space Nine while you have a chance.
Not surprising (Score:3)
Their rover probably leaked something and now they're trying to cove it up.
Did they make it out of leftover VW parts or something?
from the head-in-my-ass dept (Score:2)
That one is easy (Score:2)
Re: That one is easy (Score:2)
Does it have ... (Score:5, Funny)
It's Armus (Score:2)
http://rosemarieberger.com/201... [rosemarieberger.com]
Oblig Dune reference (Score:2)
"He who controls the spice controls the universe."
It's definitely Spice Melange [wikipedia.org]
It's the Phantom Zone crystal. (Score:2)
Most likely ... (Score:1)
I can't believe nobody said this yet, but... (Score:3)
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Portal Gel (Score:1)
The Blob (Score:1)
Or maybe... (Score:1)
... the Chinese Rover pooped on the moon, and is trying to blame it on aliens.
Seriously, it probably leaked from the rover itself; hydralic fluid would gel up at those Kelvinated temperatures.