Mars May Have Active Volcanoes, Adding New Promise To Search for Extraterrestrial Life (time.com) 20
One of the great differences between Mars and Earth involves what's going on beneath the surface. Our planet remains a tectonically and volcanically active world -- witness the current eruptions in Hawaii -- while Mars has been a cold, geologically dead place for the past three billion years. That was the thinking at least. But a new paper in Nature Astronomy challenges that accepted wisdom. Mars, it suggests, may still be geologically active today. Time: The findings are the result of orbital photography, surface data, and computer modeling of a lowland region near the Martian equator known as Elysium Planitia -- where NASA's Mars InSight probe landed in 2018. Researchers from the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory analyzed recordings of Mars quakes taken by InSight and concluded that they all result from a series of subsurface fissures dubbed Cerberus Fossae, which stretch nearly 1,300 km (800 mi.) across the Martian surface. This gives rise to what are known as mantle plumes: blob-like masses of molten rock that rise to reach the base of the crust, causing quakes, faulting, and volcanic eruptions. Computer modeling of the region indicates that far from being geologically dead, Elysium Planitia experienced major volcanic eruptions as recently as 200 million years ago.
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Recent? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure I'd call 200 million years ago recent even on geological timescales. Pangaea still existed back then.
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But Ur and Rodinia had already come and gone. "Geological time" is a hard scope to grasp.
Re: Recent? (Score:2)
Its scope is the time in which notable geological changes happen and 200m is easily long enough. Eg only 50m years ago the Himalayas didnt exist! Now you could argue that on mars timescales are different, but nonetheless, 200m years is not recent by any measure.
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It's still far more recent than the previously expected three billion years. And that's only for "major volcanic eruptions"... Perhaps the more interesting part is that there is an active mantle plume under that area right now as we speak, causing detectable marsquakes.
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I was at a science-at-the-pub thing once where someone gives a little layman-level talk, everyone drinks lots of beer, and the audience gets to ask questions. I don't remember the topic, but it was something to do with evolution. I think someone's lab-mate was giving the talk, but we really went to see what kind of nutters were in the audience.
The questions were pretty boring and we were actually walking out when someone piped up with "what do you think about the theory that DNA is a radio receiver?"
We imme
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I know I'm wasting my time on an AC misanthrope but whatever...
And they think they have moral authority to tell the rest of us how to vote and what our ideals should be.
Do they now? I must have missed that somehow. Got a link?
It's not empirical or scientific to even talk about meaning, and the scientists have yet to find it themselves.
There's always been scientists and philosophers talking about meaning. If you don't like that, start a cult.
They might not have found ultimate meaning, but the search [bigthink.com] goes on.
Hm (Score:1)
And you? Where's your moral authority. We've seen right-wing "moral authority" .. you guys tortured alive already-born people in Gitmo, you refuse healthcare for poor people, you discriminate against gay/trans, you discriminate against races/ethnicities other than your own, you deport people who were brought to the US as kids and lived their whole life here, you force 10 year old rape victims access to abortion. So mind your own business, you've sold your hypocritic moral authority. You have no right to tel
Just as important, is energy (Score:2)
Extraterrestrial Life ... that's like Earth Life (Score:2)
All the 'Life' searches are based on what biologists here on Earth believe 'Life' to be like. So if it isn't like that, then they won't find it.
Footnote: Biologists only know what they've seen before. Biology isn't a science. Without first principles it's strictly an observational pass-time though some are trying to change that. No surprise that over the years biologists have consistently found Life on Earth where the previously believed no Life could exist,
The Quest (Score:2)
The Everlasting Quest. Searching, searching, searching.
This is an ideal funding mechanism: perpetual search for something that will never be found.