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Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

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Re: Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

#111

Post by mistercow »

abcd_f wrote: post #50
mistercow wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems extremely unlikely. If a few dozen planes crashed on Earth (on land), how likely do you reckon you'd be to ever run across significant debris from any of them just by randomly driving around?

If Earth were devoid of vegetation and instead uniformly rocky, running into a sliver of a downed plane might've been far more probable. Especially with volunteers scouring every taken image for anything that doesn't look like a rock.

>If Earth were devoid of vegetation and instead uniformly rocky, running into a sliver of a downed plane might've been far more probable.

Yes, more probable, but still not probable enough to seriously consider.

>Especially with volunteers scouring every taken image for anything that doesn't look like a rock.

You'd still be preposterously unlikely to even encounter any debris.

Re: Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

#112

Post by toyg »

pohl wrote: post #109
icelancer wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even so, the chances are astronomically low that Curiosity has managed to stumble upon the wreck of another spacecraft. And the most likely alternative is?

If only there were any minerals that were prone to being shiny, we'd have one.

The problem is the shape, not just the material. As a layman, I'm not used to rocks having that shape, except in very rare circumstances but in those cases "abnormal" shapes are usually found in clusters (Grand Canyon etc). This is a seemingly-solitaire rock of abnormal material AND abnormal shape, which is possible, but almost as unlikely as random probe debris.

Re: Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

#113

Post by 001sky »

jacquesm wrote: post #80
icelancer wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even so, the chances are astronomically low that Curiosity has managed to stumble upon the wreck of another spacecraft. And the most likely alternative is?

The parts falling off this vehicle are of the very finest American manufacture.

parts falling off this vehicle

Hate to be cynical, but this seems most likely explanation.

Re: Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

#114

Post by ChuckMcM »

toyg wrote: post #112
pohl wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only there were any minerals that were prone to being shiny, we'd have one.

The problem is the shape, not just the material. As a layman, I'm not used to rocks having that shape, except in very rare circumstances but in those cases "abnormal" shapes are usually found in clusters (Grand Canyon etc). This is a seemingly-solitaire rock of abnormal material AND abnormal shape, which is possible, but almost as unlikely as random probe debris.

Just to put a bit of context here, you should visit Death Valley. It is the strangest and most wonderful place you can walk around and find amazing mineral deposits, geologic formations, and generally odd sorts of things.

Mars has had during its life a very active volcanic system, these systems imply magma, and magma implies melting and cooling of basalt. 'Shiny' objects in volcanic fields are typically obsidian or some other form of basaltic glass. Erosion by wind of a piece of obsidian can carve it into a pretty bizarre shape.

So all said and done, the geology is fascinating. And one of the differences between having a rover up there and having humans up there was that this would have been a 15 minute news story with humans, "Oh look, shiny!", "What is it?", photo, photo, chip, chip, "Some sort of , what is over where you are?"

Now its 'next day' at best, and 'in a month' if there is a long list of things to do before you get a break at worst. Sigh.

Re: Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

#115

Post by svachalek »

crusso wrote: post #94
ChuckMcM wrote: post #5

I find these things fun, of course some folks want to find alien technology, but I remind people that we've lost roughly 2/3rds of all the probes and ships that we've sent to Mars [1]. Since there isn't a lot of stuff covering them up, eventually we may find a bit of antenna from the Mars Observer sticking up where the spacecraft attempted to fly through the planet. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Mar…

Why those things? My first thought is that it's a vein of metal that is exposed.

Agreed. Curiosity is exploring an area known (or at least apparently) to have had quite a bit of water activity in the past. It seems quite likely that a river or glacier would have peeled off all the softer stone around the metal and left something like this behind.

Re: Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

#116

Post by alxndr »

edwinkite wrote: post #28

The landing created an extensive debris field [1]. For example, the descent stage energetically disassembled on impact with 100+ kg of unused propellant still on board, as planned [2]. Bits of plastic and metal are strewn across a 30km-long strip. Curiosity has imaged several of these pieces already [3]. On the other hand, some 'bright material' that was thought to be spacecraft fragments turned out to be soil materi…

[3] is a 404 page.

Love the phrase "energetically disassembled".

Re: Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

#117

Post by waterlesscloud »

robertskmiles wrote: post #102
waterlesscloud wrote: post #82

As a reminder, if a human explorer had seen this, we'd already know much, much more about it. They'd naturally take a few steps over for a closer look as soon as they saw it. Robots are a poor substitute for humans when it comes to planetary exploration.

A human explorer probably wouldn't have seen it though; it's really tiny. The reason this was seen at all is that the high resolution images are being looked over by a large number of people on Earth. NASA themselves didn't even spot it. (High resolution imagery + many many human eyes) > Human eyes Never mind that Curiosity has now been operating for 6 months without food, water, or sleep, and is expected to continue…

It's shiny, the odds are very high that a human would indeed have seen it. For one thing, a human's eyes are constantly processing the world as they move through it. Curiosity's eyes are not.

What Curiosity has done in 6 months could have been done in a couple of weeks by a human, sleep time included. Robots are vastly inferior to humans for this work, and will remain so for some time to come.

Re: Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

#118

Post by nnq »

crusso wrote: post #101
Fargren wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, alien illness probably won't kill us. Without a common ancestry, it's highly unlikely that anything that uses an alien as a host can live in our bodies.

We don't know that. There are plenty of examples on Earth of cross-species infections. No telling how microbial/fungal agents could directly attack or indirectly impact the delicate balance here on Earth. Further, any microbe hitching a ride aboard an alien may well find Earth's general environment to be easy to thrive in. Think Kudzu, but at the microbial level. Eventually, the alien microbe and/or the natural Earth…

You assume that all life would be carbon based. And even assuming a "super fit" carbon-base alien microbe, the worst you could get would be some kind of eco-disaster that will end up being controlled anyway - like some sort of alien-algae overpopulating our oceans doing some eco-havoc. Even that would involve a kind of "super-fitness" created by an accelerated evolution running for much longer than here on Earth, as this microbe will have to compete with many others that are much more adapted to our environment.

Anything really dangerous, like something that can infect multiple species, would have to be "engineered". "Mother nature" (aka evolution) doesn't engineer bio-weapons made to take over alien ecosystems - you would need huge time spans plus ubiquitous means of interstellar transportation for natural selection to favor such features (think "star gates" but zillions of them with tons of creatures and cargo running through them for at least tens of millions of years).

So I'd take contact with a "non-engineered super infection" like you describe as a sign that someone has been operating a huge network of interstellar transportation systems for quite some time, as this would provide the only "peacefull" evolutionary history (again, excluding civilizations expert in bio-war things...) for such thing to evolve, so it would be quite a good omen for hopes "intergalactic fraternity" :)

Re: Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

#119

Post by snowwrestler »

mistercow wrote: post #10
ChuckMcM wrote: post #5

I find these things fun, of course some folks want to find alien technology, but I remind people that we've lost roughly 2/3rds of all the probes and ships that we've sent to Mars [1]. Since there isn't a lot of stuff covering them up, eventually we may find a bit of antenna from the Mars Observer sticking up where the spacecraft attempted to fly through the planet. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Mar…

That seems extremely unlikely. If a few dozen planes crashed on Earth (on land), how likely do you reckon you'd be to ever run across significant debris from any of them just by randomly driving around?

It's probably still a lot more likely than stumbling across a crashed alien spacecraft.

Re: Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

#120

Post by snowwrestler »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #63
rsheridan6 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't. If aliens exist and are able to travel to our vicinity, we're probably screwed as a species.

I love (sarcasm) how a supposedly technologically superior and enlightened species of non-earth intelligent beings would only be out to destroy or punish us, according to science fiction and a lot of people.

Enlightenment and technological superiority don't necessarily go hand in hand. In fact, looking at human history, a lot of technological advancement came directly out of actual or potential warfare. (Remember that the U.S. went to the moon to beat the Russians.)

As Douglas Adams said:

"Man has always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much...the wheel, New York, wars and so on...while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man...for precisely the same reason."

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