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Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

universetoday.com

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Re: Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

#51
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…

More likely this may be human created with Photoshop.

Those images are straight from NASA's website. Unless you're suggesting there's a photoshop troll on NASA's Curiosity team?

Here's the link to the full-res photo from NASA: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/?rawid=0173MR092... and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/00173/mcam/0173...

Re: Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

#52
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's a more reasonable explanation than aliens at least.

I'm interested as to why you'd assert that so confidently. Is it perhaps the more comfortable of the two possibilities?

> Is it perhaps the more comfortable of the two possibilities?

The more plausible of the two (Occam's razor). Even though it's highly unlikely to stumble on a spacecraft wreckage on Mars. It is even more unlikely for this to be an alien tech. Though, I do admit, I want it to be :)

Re: Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

#55
post #47
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people's religion has a huge effect on their daily lives, and news like this would have a huge impact on their faith. Also, the information we exchange with them would have a huge impact on everything. What if they have the secret to efficient solar power? Or AI?

religions have an uncanny ability to either ignore scientific facts or bend their religion to fit with the facts. Remember that originally it was thought that the Earth was in the center of the universe because God had put it there. When the facts changed religion was eventually bent to acomodate the facts. Science changes and religion adapts.

Religious tradition and dogma changes yes, but their "holy" books can't rewrite themselves.

Interestingly the bible doesn't make any comment to suggest there is no other life in the universe. In fact it does refer to extra terrestrial life; God sent "angels", literally translated "messengers", to the earth.

Re: Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

#56
post #49

I'll go straight out and say it: if there is intelligence elsewhere in the universe, we have no guarantees to say that that form of cognition would in anyway resemble our own since the only models we have presume terran conditions.

Mathematics appears to be universal.

Re: Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested as to why you'd assert that so confidently. Is it perhaps the more comfortable of the two possibilities?

No, it's just the more reasonable. Most likely it's not any kind of artifact, but we have a lot more evidence for the existence of man-made spacecraft than we do for alien spacecraft, and Mars is a lot closer to Earth than it is to anywhere aliens might come from.

Hmmm... I'm not sure we have reasonable evidence either way on this thing. At face value it is a seemingly artificial object where (reasonably) such a thing should not be, and (reasonably) you cannot honestly claim to know where in the universe aliens might come from.

Re: Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

#60
post #40

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.

What is nice with alien is that we really don't know. So the sentence above tells much more about your pessimism than about aliens.

I tend toward a similar pessimism.

Hawking has said that we need only look at the history of inter-species relationships on our planet (let alone race relationships) to get a hint of what exopolitics might look like. He goes on to mention that in terms of the search for alien life, we'd do best to keep our heads low.

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