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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

#301

Post by the_af »

TheVespasian wrote: post #276
the_af wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not as distinct from basic impulses we can detect in all periods I disagree. Nazism and Fascism are largely influential today but Caesar isn't. > My understanding of human psychology does not incline me to think this is a remotely successful strategy. I cannot vouch for your understanding. I do know Nazism and Fascism must be loudly denounced whenever found. They must not be allowed to fester in the darkness.

> Nazism and Fascism are largely influential today but Caesar isn't. Sorry, but this is when I just have to tune out. It's like when people say, "America has no culture," or something similar.

Feel free to tune out. I find your arguments unconvincing.

> It's like when people say, "America has no culture," or something similar.

I do not live in the US so I couldn't care less about what people say there.

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

#302

Post by knighthack »

CardenB wrote: post #275
knighthack wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "...It provides conclusions that people so badly want to prove true that they will look for any evidence, however meager, to bolster their arguments." You argue from the position that Martians 'must not be real'. Why is your conclusion any better than those who argue that Martians could be real? Science works upon evidence. If so: a) there is some evidence to support the existence of prior life on Mars; b) it is no…

you are shifting the burden of proof and failing to make a good argument here.

Your statement make no sense.

I cite how science permits plausibility upon evidence. This is in contrast to OP's wishful dogma, where anything not presently known must be fantasy/sci-based and implausible - which is not how science works.

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

#303

Post by andrewflnr »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #215
psunavy03 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet.

I think it’s actually pretty darn stupid that we aren’t running one way missions.

The people who would be valuable in that role, namely highly trained scientists, mostly aren't interested in what's effectively a suicide mission. They have better options and things they're tied down to on Earth.

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

#304

Post by dylan604 »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #285
dylan604 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really think we're talking circles, as you've now just stated what we've said in the first place. SciFi authors thought of something that would be cool to have. Now, we have the tech that makes those scifi things real things. The people making the real things admit they were inspired by the scifi thing rather than it being an original idea to them. What's your point?

Some of them admit of that and arguably the products would have happened even without sci fi. In some cases these are just marketing stories. I don't ever consume sci fi and I have been able to come up with ideas that someone might have seen in sci fi.

yes yes. you're brilliant. what's these supposed ideas that nobody else has come up with? it ain't braggin' if you can do it. otherwise, you're just some rando on the internet crying about how smart you are.

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

#305

Post by andrewflnr »

bmitc wrote: post #220

I dislike complaining about titles, but I really wish articles, especially a national laboratory, would be more honest about titles. This makes it sound like this is the new "smoking gun" that Mars was so-called Earth-like early on. However, it was my understanding that this was already known. The largest known waterfall was already previously known to be on Mars at one point, and it was already known that Mars had o…

Actually, the article text is just playing it cool. Evidence of an oxidizing atmosphere is a whole other level of Earth-like than just having liquid water. Our oxygen atmosphere is created by life. So if these rocks were in fact formed by atmospheric oxygen, that's huge. I'm not sure it's a smoking gun, but it's at least a big bang and you can reasonably look for a gun nearby.

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

#306

Post by jandrese »

nonethewiser wrote: post #248
killthebuddha wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To me it seems like the probability could have been anything. The point is that we do know some things about the universe and, given what we do know, we think the probability is high. So we're obviously missing something but we don't know what. The thing that makes the Fermi Paradox so interesting is that every resolution is either interesting or implies something interesting.

> So we're obviously missing something but we don't know what. Isnt the answer dead simple though? Space is mostly empty. Everything is very far away and getting even further as the universe expands. If there were bits of life scattered around the universe I wouldnt expect contact between them. The paradox seems to rely on the assumption that if aliens existed they would have colonized the entire universe by now but…

Exactly. One of the base assumptions of the Fermi paradox is that travel between solar systems is practical, which is far from proven at this point. If we are bound by the rocket equation, that is to say if Newton's First Law holds, then the answer to the Fermi paradox is simple. Travel between solar systems is less practical than just colonizing your own solar system, even through extreme measures like swarms of orbital colonies.

When you think about it, an interstellar starship that must expend mass to change velocity is going to have to make a severe tradeoff between mass and travel time. In practical terms you have to first build a colony that can sustain itself indefinitely in your own solar system before you build one that can also accelerate/decelerate to a million kph and doesn't have the advantage of being near a free source of energy or any sources of new materials.

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

#307

Post by andrewflnr »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #210
elorant wrote: post #175

This is scary on two fronts. One, whatever happened to Mars could happen to Earth, and two, it puts the Great Filter probably in our future. If our solar system had two hospitable planets then there should be plenty of Earth like planets around in our galaxy. In which case we end up with the Fermi Paradox. If life is so abundant in the Universe how come we haven’t been in contact with aliens?

I don't understand Fermi Paradox. Why couldn't the chance of life be extremely miniscule, e.g. given all billions of stars and planets, why couldn't there have been even 10% or 0.0001% odds of it happening at all one any given stars or planets? E.g. maybe even it happening on one was such a lucky occurrence? Maybe given even 1,000,000 of observable universes the odds were just 1 out of 1,000,000. How can people confi…

Life started on Earth really fast after it was physically possible for it to exist on the surface. So either Earth was astronomically lucky, or forming life was easy (on the scale of a couple hundred million anyway), or Earth got seeded really quickly by the next passing rock. The first is unlikely, almost by definition, and the other two both imply life is common.

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

#308

Post by andrewflnr »

keepamovin wrote: post #264

I think we can't be certain of the ages of the planets in our solar system. It's based on different things but there's recent uncertainty about the age of the universe, possibly by a factor of two. It's possible the planets in our system are older than we think. Is it also possible they're younger? I'm not an expert on it.

The ages of the planets are figured out by entirely unrelated mechanisms to the age of the universe. One guy putting forward an alternative to LCDM doesn't itself put any doubt on the planets' ages, probably even if he was right.

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

#309

Post by throw4847285 »

dylan604 wrote: post #180
throw4847285 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah fair point. It's not as if Ray Bradbury was the most subtle writer. You have to try to miss the point. Then again, I get it. If somebody offered to build me a Gundam I wouldn't think "Oh no, a symbol for the dehumanization of soldiers on the modern battlefield" I'd think "Is the beam saber included?"

But at the same time, there's so much real science that has thoroughly been inspired by scifi. Sometimes, you just need to get the imagination juices flowing. "That thingymabob from sciFiTvShow would be really cool to have IRL. What would it take to do that...hold my beer" type thinking has probably given us more than we think. Or maybe I'm just romanticizing the concept too much?

Not so much real science. Mostly real technology. Those are very different things.

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

#310

Post by throw4847285 »

knighthack wrote: post #302
CardenB wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you are shifting the burden of proof and failing to make a good argument here.

Your statement make no sense. I cite how science permits plausibility upon evidence. This is in contrast to OP's wishful dogma, where anything not presently known must be fantasy/sci-based and implausible - which is not how science works.

I didn't say Martians can't be real. I said the evidence that I've encountered (obviously limited by the fact that I'm not a subject matter expert) is insufficient to overcome the threshold of doubt. I then theorized (uncharitably, I'll admit) that many people are predisposed to believe in martians because they've read too much science fiction stories which themselves are actually just metaphors for conditions of life here on Earth. I then made fun of these people, lightly I think.
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