Mars May Not Have Had Liquid Water Long Enough For Life To Form (arstechnica.com) 53
Elizabeth Rayne reports via Ars Technica: Led by planetary researcher Lonneke Roelofs of Utrecht University in the Netherlands, a team of scientists has found that the sublimation of CO2 ice could have shaped Martian gullies, which might mean the most recent occurrence of liquid water on Mars may have been further back in time than previously thought. That could also mean the window during which life could have emerged and thrived on Mars was possibly smaller. "Sublimation of CO2 ice, under Martian atmospheric conditions, can fluidize sediment and creates morphologies similar to those observed on Mars," Roelofs and her colleagues said in a study recently published in Communications Earth & Environment. [...]
To recreate a part of the red planet's landscape in a lab, Roelofs built a flume in a special environmental chamber that simulated the atmospheric pressure of Mars. It was steep enough for material to move downward and cold enough for CO2 ice to remain stable. But the team also added warmer adjacent slopes to provide heat for sublimation, which would drive movement of debris. They experimented with both scenarios that might happen on Mars: heat coming from beneath the CO2 ice and warm material being poured on top of it. Both produced the kinds of flows that had been hypothesized. For further evidence that flows driven by sublimation would happen under certain conditions, two further experiments were conducted, one under Earth-like pressures and one without CO2 ice. No flows were produced by either. "For the first time, these experiments provide direct evidence that CO2 sublimation can fluidize, and sustain, granular flows under Martian atmospheric conditions," the researchers said in the study.
Because this experiment showed that gullies and systems like them can be shaped by sublimation and not just liquid water, it raises questions about how long Mars had a sufficient supply of liquid water on the surface for any organisms (if they existed at all) to survive. Its period of habitability might have been shorter than it was once thought to be. Does this mean nothing ever lived on Mars? Not necessarily, but Roelofs' findings could influence how we see planetary habitability in the future.
To recreate a part of the red planet's landscape in a lab, Roelofs built a flume in a special environmental chamber that simulated the atmospheric pressure of Mars. It was steep enough for material to move downward and cold enough for CO2 ice to remain stable. But the team also added warmer adjacent slopes to provide heat for sublimation, which would drive movement of debris. They experimented with both scenarios that might happen on Mars: heat coming from beneath the CO2 ice and warm material being poured on top of it. Both produced the kinds of flows that had been hypothesized. For further evidence that flows driven by sublimation would happen under certain conditions, two further experiments were conducted, one under Earth-like pressures and one without CO2 ice. No flows were produced by either. "For the first time, these experiments provide direct evidence that CO2 sublimation can fluidize, and sustain, granular flows under Martian atmospheric conditions," the researchers said in the study.
Because this experiment showed that gullies and systems like them can be shaped by sublimation and not just liquid water, it raises questions about how long Mars had a sufficient supply of liquid water on the surface for any organisms (if they existed at all) to survive. Its period of habitability might have been shorter than it was once thought to be. Does this mean nothing ever lived on Mars? Not necessarily, but Roelofs' findings could influence how we see planetary habitability in the future.
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An object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted on by an outside force.
Speaking of wielding glaring ignorance as a super power...... Emergence is a real thing, observed in multiple fields.
On topic, Mars is a frozen, radioactive, toxic hellhole and anyone arguing as if it were some sort of last ditch liferaft is either a Martian agent or insane.
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On topic, Mars is a frozen, radioactive, toxic hellhole and anyone arguing as if it were some sort of last ditch liferaft is either a Martian agent or insane.
I'm not aware of anyone claiming that Mars is currently the Bahamas, or remotely easy. It will take a few generations for life to even become self-sufficient there.
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It will take a few generations for life to even become self-sufficient there.
Wait. So you imagine that, in "a few generations", they would have gotten the planet's core molten and generating a magnetosphere, up-weighted the planet to the point it could actually hold an atmosphere, introduced enough mousture to generate clouds, filtered the first hundred meters or so of topsoil to remove all the perchlorates and a slew of other unfriendly compounds....
Here's the thing. We already have a world with all that sorted. We're just destroying it because "reasons".
We belong dead
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"We belong dead"
Feel free to set an example.
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I hear Elon has got a stash of alien terraforming seeds, see the little flying creature spreading them for planet Earth here, we simply need to do the same on Mars, easy!:
https://bestclassicbands.com/w... [bestclassicbands.com]
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I hear OpenAI is about to reveal a thinking artificial brain.
So you're in luck. :)
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Exactly. Terraforming Mars will take hundreds, if not thousands of years, but people can live well there maybe before Earth is Venus.
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You're an idiot. Let's just start there.
I didn't say a few generations to terraform the planet, I said a few generations to become self-sufficient. That's is absolutely doable, we just have to ship enough equipment and learn how to survive there without constant resupply from Earth.
As for Earth, we're fucked when global warming spirals out of control. The question is not do we fix Earth or go to Mars. We can do both.
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As for Earth, we're fucked when global warming spirals out of control.
1g of gravity, a magnetosphere, and (presumably) fair amounts of water and oxygen... Still sounds a lot better than Mars.
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1g is too much. I'm fat. A magnetosphere would be great, but it's overrated. Mars has water and we can make oxygen.
Anyway, where's your sense of adventure?
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You're an idiot. Let's just start there.
I didn't say a few generations to terraform the planet, I said a few generations to become self-sufficient.
First off, I hold zero responsibility for your ignorance.. that's on you.
Secondly, we aren't even self sufficient at the poles on the same farking planet yet but you are deluded enough we can accomplish this by spewing scarce resources at a dead planet. Dumb is dumb but... come on.
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First off, I hold zero responsibility for your ignorance.. that's on you.
LOL "ignorance?" On what?
First you jump the gun because of a reading comprehension failure, then you accuse me of ignorance with no specifics. Sounds like hand waving and projection to me.
Secondly, we aren't even self sufficient at the poles on the same farking planet
Mars is not the poles of Earth. No one is pouring billions into any effort to make life there self-sufficient because it is trivially easy to resupply. Mars is insanely difficult and expensive to resupply. Even communicating over that distance takes a long time, a special satellite, and NASA.
It is "ignorant" in the ex
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It is created.
By something that's not alive, I suppose?
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Yes and No.
Re:Life Doesn't Just Form (Score:4, Informative)
The type of answer you get from all religions when you ask them difficult questions. They have no answers so vague hand waving, answering a question with a question and bet hedging are their only possible responses. And to be fair , with uneducated and not very bright people it works a treat.
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If a religious person claims to know all the answers then yeah, they are wrong. But if you start with unanswerable questions, like what is conscientiousness, how did the universe start, etc., and neither the scientist nor believer has the definitive answer you can't just condemn that believer.
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Except for one big difference:
Science says "we don't know but it might have been this"
Religion says "we do know and it was this and if you don't believe we'll cast you out!"
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Nope...that's why I included the phrase "if a religious person claims to know all the answers then yeah, they are wrong". If you're interested, please re-read my post with this clarification.
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There are no religions like that.
Only religious fanatics that are similar fanatic about religions like you are fanatic about being anti religious.
What is so difficult in accepting that ancient believe systems do not simply die out: just because we have a better understanding of sciences right now?
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It is created. I didn't make the rules. Just because you don't like them doesn't mean you get to make up your own. Especially one as stupid as life just popping up randomly then one day needing the opposite sex to suddenly procreate. Learn some goddamned physics. An object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted on by an outside force.
Someone mod this Funny, quick. This is obviously a parody of a person with a brain.
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Especially one as stupid as life just popping up randomly then one day needing the opposite sex to suddenly procreate. Learn some goddamned physics.
Someone mod this Funny, quick. This is obviously a parody of a person with a brain.
I was hoping to learn more about the physics of sex.
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Physics is not Biology. And if you need an outside force, then there is one at hand: the Environment + random mutations and events.
Your argument: I don't understand how life could have evolved, therefore you must accept my argument, hand-waving at Physics in lieu of invoking a god.
Rest assured your attempt at virtue signaling Heaven that you belong there when you go tits up has been duly recorded by St. Peter. Don't forget to mention me.
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The stupidity of this comment is epic.
Give it a rest (Score:3)
Why do they always have to take super interesting studies like this and bend over backwards to make it relatable to the common idiot? Does every Mars-related discovery really have to be framed by the tired question of "life on Mars?" I'm so tired of this "life on Mars" narrative. Mars is an interesting place on its own.
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Ok that's really an interesting point of view but what do you think about life on mars?
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Does every Mars-related discovery really have to be framed by the tired question of "life on Mars?" I'm so tired of this "life on Mars" narrative. Mars is an interesting place on its own.
I fully empathize; however, you have to understand: one of the most important questions that faces humanity is whether or not life occurs elsewhere or if we are an extreme anomaly.
(definitely not THE most important question, but just as definitely one of the most important questions)
Stupid headline (Score:3)
Wish they'd make their minds up (Score:3)
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/new... [imperial.ac.uk]
Seems to me than no on really has a clue one way or the other.
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Yeah why can't science just have consensus? Why do different scientists come to different conclusions given the same data? I hate the Scientific Method; I just want the universe to be simple and clear instead of all this messy "we don't know and are still figuring it out" stuff.
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Consensus tends to be the most useful outcome otherwise its just pointless handwaving. If they can't agree then either the data is crap or they have no idea what they're talking about.
This insult will not go unpunished (Score:3)
K' Breel has been made aware of the authors of this slanderous allegation and, once the glorious invasion of the blue planet has begun, will personally track them down and liquefy their gelsacs.
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I have no idea who K' Breel is, or any reason to fear him/her/it. I'd be much more concerned if Tars Tarkas [wikipedia.org] were to take umbrage with Earth.
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Well I was another one, and google only pointed to a handful of posts as satire posting as them.
But...
K'Breel is a fictional character from the science fiction universe created by Isaac Asimov, specifically from his "Foundation" series. K'Breel is a member of the species known as the "Seliwonks," an alien species within the Foundation universe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Well, I'd never heard of him, but I am watching the Apple+ series and it's awesome so far. Maybe we'll meet him.
Basic science? (Score:2)
Are the guys who keep looking for water and life on Mars so busy filing papers that they never give a thought to the most-basic science?
Mars is SMALL, about 1/10th the mass of the Earth. Low mass = Low gravity, and sure enough... Mars surface gravity is IIRC about a 3rd of Earth's. Low gravity = less ability to hold an atmosphere, and yup.. about 0.004PSI (as opposed to Earth's 14.7PSI). Low pressure = water boiling-off into vapor [H2O vapor pressure is 2.3 kPa], becoming part of the atmosphere, which Mars
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You are clearly completely out of the loop.
Mars is full with underground water ice. If you melt all of it you have several oceans.
It most likely had an atmosphere similar to earth.
And most of that is frozen or reacted with the soil, and can be freed with heat.
Top temperature in summer in the sun: 25C.
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It most likely had an atmosphere similar to earth. And most of that is frozen or reacted with the soil, and can be freed with heat.
...only to watch it stripped away.. because, and this may come as a surprise, Mars cannot hold onto its atmosphere... /p.
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It can hold it several billion years. That is why the old atmosphere is frozen in the ground, facepalm.
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It can hold it several billion years.
Not sure who taught tyou anything about this but you should be demanding a refund.
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It is a scientific fact that Mars had an atmosphere for several billion years. Especially as he had a magnetic field, too.
When the magnetism got weaker, the atmosphere did not vanish over night. Or do you think so?
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You're arguing the wrong thing. Mars, right now, cannot hold an atmosphere. Mars, right now, is a froxen, toxic, radioactive hellhole with very low gravity. It is not an environemtn in which we can function without enormous inputs from Earth.
...and no, the atmosphere did not scurry underground to hide, per the prior comment.
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If you can make an atmosphere over night. It will last nearly a billion years.
Delusion all the way down.
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"Mars is full with underground water ice. If you melt all of it you have several oceans." No. Most Martian ice is at the polar caps (although the visible caps are mostly CO2 ice), some at mid-latitudes. And definitely not enough to create one ocean, much less several.
Whether it ever had "an atmosphere similar to earth" is debatable. If it did, it was almost certainly a CO2 atmosphere, like the early Earth, without any appreciable free oxygen.
Top temp: not all that different from Earth. Which means that
Pics or it didn't happen! (Score:1)
This is a very hands-on visual lab experiment. I'd really like to see photos, along with comparisons to Mars terrain.
Imagine being p