NASA: Mars was once 'soaking wet'

this is interesting

*chuckle* Interested to hear your thoughts. Will Earth eventually get some new sims?

I heard the rumor about this a few days ago and then there was some buzz when several of the JPL people hopped on airplanes to head for a press conference here in Washington. I just finished watching that. It will probably be re-broadcast on C-Span.org (I'd expect to find it out there tomorrow maybe) for anyone who is interested.

Pretty neat stuff. Still there was a lot they don't know. No real verdict on life yet. One of the geologists pointed how how difficult, and rare, it is to find fossil evidence of life here on Earth. Sounds like they are not very optimistic about finding anything new with Spirit. Opportunity just happened, by luck, to have landed in a more interesting place. We'll see.

Every photo taken by both rovers is, by the way available on the net. There are thousands, and unfortunately no good place (at the NASA site anyway) to just say "show me the good ones". But the thumbnails make it easier to spot the real pictures from the ones that are out of focus or are of the one camera taking pictures of the other camera (they do this a lot for some reason).

There is also an IRC channel that has a lot of knowledgeable people in it following the missions. It goes with a program which you can download that allows you to operate your own virtual rover using real data that has been obtained. The program is called "maestro". It's Java, a bit problematic to set up and I haven't bothered with it. But the regulars on the channel do a lot of their own photo processing, colorizing, and theorizing about what it all means. Even some NASA people hang out there.

server: irc.freenode.net
channel: #maestro

thanks!!
fascinating, i'll check that out.

OH, I forgot... here is the link for the pictures:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/

Im thirsty... when are they going to start selling the first mars water bottled water, for 100,000 USD a bottle, its too good an offer to ignore!

Bah, even if Earth gets some new sims it'll all be Linden owned anyway so who cares!

Wonder what got Mars so wet?

... *pause for sexual induendo to sink in*



It is all very interisting. I haven't really been following the Mars missions, but I do find space stuff fascinating.

I'm still waiting for the Martians to come out and start beating the rovers with sticks and using them for joy riding.

FROM: ZZXXCC-999, Regional Commander, Mars Defense Forces
TO: AAXXAA-001, Supreme Overlord, Planetary Dominion of Mars
RE: Alien Spacecraft

Your Excellency:

To date we have been unable to elicit any response from the Earther space probe which landed recently in sector 69-J. No doubt this is due to the aliens’ primitive usage of the electromagnetic spectrum in their detection devices.

Our contingency plan for contact involves the use of large sticks, with which we hope to pummel the alien craft into submission. One obstacle that we hope to overcome is that Mars has no trees, thus our supply of sticks - large or otherwise - is quite limited.

Standing by for further instructions.

Your obedient servant,
ZZXXCC-999

I'm sorry, but are Oz and I the only ones to have thought dirty thoughts when they heard about this?

And was I the only one to jump up and down cheering?

This line just cracks me up...

"We have concluded the rocks here were once soaked in liquid water,"

Don't know why, it just strikes me funny.

I tried to think of a joke relating to the thread topic but I wasn't smart enough to think of one.

Sinclair, who authorized you to post that here????

=== The Sinclair Creature wishes to express his regret about any confusion resulting from the unauthorized release of any communications regarding hypothetical missions dealing with hypothetical alien spacecraft such communications are of course untrue and such thoughts are not permitted so you are instructed to disregard them and continue with your primitive existence thank you ===

Mars was once able to support life as we know it... That's just soooooo damn cool. Judging by the biodiversity of this planet where every ecological niche has been filled, I'll be very suprised if we never find evidence of past life on mars... at least microbial life. I hope we manage to get humans to mars while I'm still alive.

I also think the recent discovery of teeth from a six million year old hominid is very exciting. It's the closest yet found to our common ancestor with chimps.

Anything that annoys creationists makes me happy

Humm...

I was soaking wet once.

Lum

Ok, how about this... upon further investigation of Mars and digging deaper into its surface, we find skelatons... human... upon further digging we find remains of a civilization... ours... we find that Mars is actualy Earth, but from the future, and is what we are all destined for.

OR! We find that its human civilization... Advanced! Technolgicaly! And they gave birth do us, and sent a chimp to earth to investigate it... but they all died, the chimp survived, and evolved into us.

That would be awsome/weird.

I once had a dream, where there was some large battle going on, I was on a farm house, on the porch, and there was this big battle like Star Wars going on... and Mars was VERY close, like HUGE close, and you could see it perfectly, and it had black and white in it with the red. And my mom was there and she said "Its so pretty, it has blue and green in it just like Earth." it was weird... one of those dreams that are so realistic but yet so fake, you're like woah! Anyway...

Actually it couldn't be a chimp that evolved into us, it would have to be a "common ancestor" we have with chimps. Er sorta like a greatgreatgreatgreatgreat grandfather in common. So when someone says we "evolved from chimps" or apes or whatever, tell them they're wrong!

Sinclair I can't help but think that we're not coming across (in front of these primitives) as very bright space aliens!

=== Native adaptation complete Sinclair creature now demonstrating behavior indistinguishable from indigenous primitives however this may prevent successful recall of operative post mission completion oopsie ===

Chip:
"I also think the recent discovery of teeth from a six million year old hominid is very exciting. It's the closest yet found to our common ancestor with chimps."

oh holy crap really?? do you have any links to info on that? i usually keep up with this stuff, but i have missed that discovery.


Garoad:
"Actually it couldn't be a chimp that evolved into us, it would have to be a "common ancestor" we have with chimps. Er sorta like a greatgreatgreatgreatgreat grandfather in common. So when someone says we "evolved from chimps" or apes or whatever, tell them they're wrong!"

LOL! i'll remember that one
Heinlien joked in To Sail Beyond The Sunset that redheads were decended from cats. I've always been charmed by that thought.

*chuckles at Sinclair and Oz*

Off to go link hunting for the latest developments on all this...
(edit: apologies, i havent figured out the quote thingy yet. for some wierd reason it never works for me.)

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/03/04_Akadab.shtml