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New findings point to an Earth-like environment on ancient Mars

discover.lanl.gov

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Re: New findings point to an Earth-like environment on ancient Mars

#111

Post by pdonis »

pc86 wrote: post #95
iamflimflam1 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly worth also including just how controversial Wernher von Braun is. Von Braun is a highly controversial figure widely seen as escaping justice for his Nazi war crimes due to the Americans' desire to beat the Soviets in the Cold War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun

What does that have to do with the comment you're replying to? Edit: This is an honest question, I'm not familiar with the extent of his crimes, if any. It certainly doesn't seem like a clear-cut "he was an objectively evil man but we looked the other way" based on the Wikipedia article. It could very well be his account, which from a brief skim seems reasonable, is accurate?

> I'm not familiar with the extent of his crimes, if any.

He was the Nazis' best rocket engineer, responsible for, among other things, the V2s that devastated much of London. By the standards of the Nuremberg trials, he probably should have been tried and convicted. But he was never even accused, because the US wanted his rocket expertise--by the time of the Nuremberg trials, he was already working for the US Army.

Re: New findings point to an Earth-like environment on ancient Mars

#112

Post by perihelions »

iamflimflam1 wrote: post #72
walterbell wrote: post #65

Kurd Lasswitz wrote "Two Planets" in 1897, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39598983 > Lasswitz's Martians differ little from man physically, but ethically, intellectually, scientifically, and socially they are the prototype of the ideal human being. They seek to educate man, asking in return only air and energy to supplement the diminished supplies in their own, older world. The story revolves around a group of…

Possibly worth also including just how controversial Wernher von Braun is. Von Braun is a highly controversial figure widely seen as escaping justice for his Nazi war crimes due to the Americans' desire to beat the Soviets in the Cold War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun

- "Former Buchenwald inmate Adam Cabala stated that von Braun went to the concentration camp to pick slave laborers:"

- "... also the German scientists led by Prof. Wernher von Braun were aware of everything daily. As they went along the corridors, they saw the exhaustion of the inmates, their arduous work and their pain. Not one single time did Prof. Wernher von Braun protest against this cruelty during his frequent stays at Dora. Even the aspect of corpses did not touch him: On a small area near the ambulance shed, inmates tortured to death by slave labor and the terror of the overseers were piling up daily. But, Prof. Wernher von Braun passed them so close that he was almost touching the corpses.[63]"

I agree with your comment. Let's never speak in respectful language about a Nazi SS officer. It's a loud silence when someone circles around the topic without mentioning it, as if there were some obligation of diplomacy—as if you owe tactfulness or professional courtesy to Nazis.

Re: New findings point to an Earth-like environment on ancient Mars

#113

Post by b800h »

williamcotton wrote: post #91
caseyy wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long billion vs short billion?

Didn’t the “long billion”, aka a trillion, stop being used sometime in the early 20th century on British English, if not earlier?

Some of our books in UK school in the 1980s listed 10^12 as a billion. That doesn't mean it wasn't officially changed in the early C20th though.

Re: New findings point to an Earth-like environment on ancient Mars

#114

Post by digging »

Symmetry wrote: post #23
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, why aren't Martians from Earth. As much as I like the idea conceptually for movies. That life on Earth came from Mars still doesn't explain how life started on Mars. It just moves the location, the mechanism is still tbd.

Life arose on Earth really fast after the surface stopped being magma. Since Mars cooled down faster the idea is that it could have spent 100 million of year developing bacteria which were then seeded the Earth as soon as there was liquid water there.

While in general the argument may hold that life evolved too fast, your numbers are off. 100 million years is just about the minimum estimate for the emergence of life on Earth. If Mars has a longer timeline it should be closer to 1 billion years between solidification and emergence of life.

Re: New findings point to an Earth-like environment on ancient Mars

#115

Post by b800h »

wddkcs wrote: post #40
bena wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, panspermia isn't an answer, it's kicking the can down the road. The only thing panspermia can tell us is that it's ok if we can't find evidence for the genesis of life on Earth.

All science is the process of kicking the can further down the road.

Excellent comment. Kalām cosmological argument.

Re: New findings point to an Earth-like environment on ancient Mars

#116

Post by olddustytrail »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #90
adastra22 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You jest, but I seriously believe we are likely martians. Early panspermia from Mars settles a LOT of astrobiological questions about origin of life and LUCA complexity. To be clear, Mars’ descent into inhospitality was totally natural and the result of a smaller planet with stripped atmosphere just outside the habitable zone as the Sun cooled. I doubt Martian life developed to be multicellular. But I bet when we go…

> as the Sun cooled Huh? The Sun has consistently gotten hotter with age.

Indeed. Something we have in common.

Re: New findings point to an Earth-like environment on ancient Mars

#118

Post by bena »

adastra22 wrote: post #41
bena wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, panspermia isn't an answer, it's kicking the can down the road. The only thing panspermia can tell us is that it's ok if we can't find evidence for the genesis of life on Earth.

Which is an important advance because genesis of life on Earth is getting harder and harder to answer as we gather more evidence. Pushing it to another environment (and longer time frame) does in fact solve a number of problems.

I'd say it just ignores any problems.

However, haven't we roughly recreated the process in a lab in the last couple of decades?

And we may never have the answer because we simply can't know because no one was there because nothing was there. But there's a plausible enough explanation that we don't need to invoke the extraterrestrial and all of its problems.

And I think that's part of the appeal of panspermia, it makes life extraterrestrial. And if it is extraterrestrial in origin, then it could have happened elsewhere. Whereas if the genesis of life is contained to Earth, then the chances go down that it happened somewhere else.

Re: New findings point to an Earth-like environment on ancient Mars

#119

Post by 48864w6ui »

WillAdams wrote: post #50
48864w6ui wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone remember the title of the short where they explore an ancient martian city and find a periodic table that serves as a Rosetta stone?

That's "Omnilingual" See the nicely updated version at: http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan/omnilingual.html

Oops, sorry for the spoiler

Re: New findings point to an Earth-like environment on ancient Mars

#120

Post by nwienert »

pdonis wrote: post #111
pc86 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does that have to do with the comment you're replying to? Edit: This is an honest question, I'm not familiar with the extent of his crimes, if any. It certainly doesn't seem like a clear-cut "he was an objectively evil man but we looked the other way" based on the Wikipedia article. It could very well be his account, which from a brief skim seems reasonable, is accurate?

> I'm not familiar with the extent of his crimes, if any. He was the Nazis' best rocket engineer, responsible for, among other things, the V2s that devastated much of London. By the standards of the Nuremberg trials, he probably should have been tried and convicted. But he was never even accused, because the US wanted his rocket expertise--by the time of the Nuremberg trials, he was already working for the US Army.

Genuine question - unless he was directly involved with the genocide, was he not doing the exact same thing the allies were doing? It’s not a war crime to participate in a war for your country.

The US bombed German civilians and Japanese civilians in mass numbers.

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