Life on Mars?

Space.... Mars...


ooohh.... Captain.. my Captain....

did u say

[glow=blue,2,300]VENUS !!!![/glow]

Men are from Mars.... Women are from Venus

getting myself ready for the... Date... !!!!

(by the way cochise.... what the heck are you doin that to cochise... huuh... you dun want him to take part in with us huuuh )

 

I'm afraid the temperatures are too hot on Venus!!!
it varies from 400 degrees to 740K .
And 740k = 466.85C So that's hot enough to melt lead!

Let's keep our distance from Venus. We'll have a kinda telescopic camera take any pics we might want.


Uguel

 

O my captain.....

dreams crashed !!!...

not really... lol ... earth has better women...

NB: Did you see captain,,, Paint's condition

 

Captain I was wondering when the anticipated launch date was.I have the batteries charged to power the computers during launch.


bigc73542
science officer
star ship Infinity

 

"To Infinity and Beyond".
http://www.gifs.net/animate/starship.gif

 

To Science Officer, and all...

April 1st will be fine. But I encourage all the crew members to not give up on our heroic mission despite a chap around here calling our ship Titanic!


Uguel (scrutinizing star map)

 

Isn't that the guy that looks like Jay Leno in a space suit?

Uguel

 

He's just jealous. He'll be stuck here with Grisel!
Romance is blossoming. HeHeHe!!!

 

As science officer I feel it is my duty to inform you the crew that we have another choice of landing sites. This picture of the proposed landing site was taken by the robot ship excaliber. I will leave it to a vote of the crew and a final decision of the captain.


bigc73542
science officer
space ship Inifinity

 

from Bigc

It all depends of the ground density. I don't care for the landscape, all I care is not sinking in any quicksand...So you might check the exactitude of the ground tester "onsafegroundwego" before we land.

Uguel

 

the density of the soil should support our ship without and problems.


c=1.0 kPa Soil internal slip angle q=35 Soil bulk density r=1500 kg m 3 Sinkage coefficient n s =1 Frictional mod. of deformation K f =850 kN m n 2 Coefficient of soil slip k=0.03 m
bigc73542
science officer
space ship Inifinity

 

Ahhhhhh! I see now!!! That explains it. My mom (and thus Cochise as well) is not coming along since the soil can't support her!

Uguel

 

I surmise that the martian soil will support our ship and crew. That is as far as I am willing to go in answer to your last question.


bigc73542
science officer
space ship Inifinity

 

Well, Grisel will be here on Earth and you will be in the ship so I would say you are safe!


Uguel

 

Plus, she is not very mobile anyway!

Uguel

 

Well I shall bed myself now, perchance to sleep perchance not. I shall try to slip from the bonds of awarness and soar through dreams that happen to intrude on my escape from the awakened. good night sweet world I shall endeavor to return on the morrow.And May the demons of an under cooked meal not spoil my sleep and the thoughts of escaping the gravitational hold of this small heavenly orb. I must leave now sweet soul the morrow comes to soon,Bursting from hiding like a tiger pouncing on it prey. May the angels be by your side until again the sun rises from the east.


bigc73542
science officer
space ship Inifinity

 

Not to question your experience in matters of planetary science, but that statement worries me seeing as what I and others on the part of the earth where I am have went through recently. We've had 2 snow storms in the last week. On the 1st one, all of the weather people said we were going to get 16 to 18 inches. We got 4". They got ripped for missing it by so much. On the 2nd storm they said 1 to 4 inches, and we got 12". So everytime they gave a forecast after the 1st storm, they always included the statement, "And that's about as far as I'm willing to go". So you can understand why I'm getting worried. I've had enough of snow. There's no snow on Mars is there? We won't be landing anywhere with snow will we? And please no snowcones for dessert.

Chief Engineer beetlejuice
(getting cold feet literally, and everything else too)

 

beetle beetle... or captain or bigc...


whats my position in the exploration

uguel captain

bj chief engineer

bigc science officer

subratam...

 

Hey sub, I'll have to confer with Captain Uguel, but I was thinking Linguistics Expert would be right down your alley in case we have trouble comunicating with the Martians.

 

Hey!!......Captain Uguel.....I didn't call the 'Ship' the Titanic......what I said was after seeing the launch date and the name 'SKYDIVER' for the ship....I was surprised that you hadn't called THE MISSION...'TITANIC'.

Oh! and don't worry about Griselda, Paint said he will take very good care of her, he said she is his kind of woman.

Cochise,

 

And I've had enough of snow too! I think I will boycott any white clothes from my closet for a long time to come!!!


Captain Uguel

 

Oh I see!

About your second remark....


actually, Griselda has a terrible headache and she's in a bad mood: She warned me, "No more jokes about me or I'll throw your computer through the window!!!" The worst of it is that my computer is on the second floor!



Uguel, captain of the great "Infinity"

 

I didn't want to put my life at risk saying things about people I have not met or even know So I took silence as the easy way out

 

bigc73542
science officer
space ship Infinity


http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=380

Evidence of Snow on Mars - and Perhaps an Abode for Life?
By Leslie Mullen

On steep slopes in martian craters, recently melting snow may have created a system of gullies, says Philip Christensen, the principal investigator for the Mars Odyssey THEMIS camera system and a professor from Arizona State University. He says that the melted water collecting underneath these snow packs also could have created an ideal abode for life.

"I think we have discovered remnants of snow packs on Mars that in the recent past have melted," says Christensen. "I think if you were to land on one of those and stick a shovel in the ground, you'd be shoveling snow. And if life ever existed on Mars, I can't think of a more exciting place to possibly go and look."

Christensen examined martian images of gullies and what he termed "pasted-on materials." In his paper, published in the electronic February 13 issue of Nature, Christensen argues that that the pasted-on materials are remnants of a once very extensive layer of snow that covered the mid-latitudes of Mars.

"This snow draped the landscape, and as the climate warmed, the snows melted," says Christensen. The snow sheltered the water, which otherwise would have rapidly evaporated in the planet's thin atmosphere. "That melt water trickled through the snow and eroded the gullies underneath this overlying pack of snow."


   
This visible-light image, taken by the thermal emission imaging system on NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft, indicates that gullies on martian crater walls may be carved by liquid water melting from remnant snow packs. Credit: NASA/JPL/ASU   

Eroded gullies on crater walls and cliff sides were first observed in images taken by the Mars Global Surveyor in 2000. Most of the models to describe these formations had water coming out of the ground in aquifers and springs, or had ice-impregnated soils melting during warmer climatic periods and causing landslides.

In Christensen's model, however, the snow acts as a protective blanket that allows liquid water to collect a few centimeters or inches beneath the planet's surface. His model explains how gullies could form in unusual places such as the tops of isolated hills, on sand dunes, on the crests of ridges, and other places where it would be very difficult to have ground water creating the gullies.

"We've had, up until now, a number of different possible explanations for the gullies, and the fact is none of them have been very good," says Bruce Jakosky, a planetary scientist from the University of Colorado at Boulder. "I think (Christensen's theory) is the most consistent explanation with the observations so far. In the hierarchy of ideas that work and ideas that won't, this one is at the very top of the list."

In Christensen's model, the gullies formed about one hundred thousand years ago, when the tilt of the polar axis of Mars was higher than it is today. As the axis of Mars tilted, the poles became warmer while the mid-latitudes grew colder. The water ice in the warmer areas sublimed, or turned from a solid to a gas without going through a liquid stage. The wind carried this atmospheric moisture to the cold mid-latitudes, causing the moisture to condense into snow.


   
Polar regions show frost, often a mixture of dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide) Credit: NASA/JPL/Viking   

The axis of Mars slowly tilts over one hundred thousand-year cycles. As Mars tilts over, the poles warm and the mid-latitudes get colder, and then when the axis of Mars tilts back up again, the situation reverses itself, with the poles growing colder and the mid-latitudes growing warmer. During these cycles, water migrates between the polar regions and the mid-latitudes.

"To me, the exciting thing is it's an on-going process," says Christensen. "The snow will be back; these gullies will be rejuvenated and re-activated. What we see today are the fossil remnants of that snow, but it is by no means a dead, inactive process - it will occur again."

Today, the mid-latitude regions are too cold to allow ice to melt. But Jakosky says there still is a possibility for liquid water there, with partial melting forming thin films of water that might be adequate to support organisms.

"I think in terms of liquid water, Mars is a planet that's on the verge of being habitable," says Jakosky.

Jack Mustard, a planetary biologist from Brown University, notes that the only place we actually see water present on the surface of Mars is in the polar ice caps. While the Mars Odyssey found buried ice as far down towards the equator as 60 degrees, Mustard says we still have no direct evidence of ice or snow at the surface of the planet in those mid-latitude regions.


   
This visible-light image, taken by NASA's Viking spacecraft, shows a close-up cliff Credit: NASA/JPL/Viking   

Lynn Rothschild, a biologist with the NASA Ames Research Center, comments that biologists have been both excited and dismayed by the possibility of this buried mid-latitude water.

"We know that there are subsurface communities on the Earth, but the depressing thing is, we were talking about drilling maybe a kilometer or two below the surface," says Rothschild. "(Then the search for life on Mars) becomes very expensive and technologically difficult."

But Christensen's model suggests that liquid water could be within centimeters of the surface of Mars, negating the need for deep drilling.

Rothschild says that although Mars is very cold, there are organisms on Earth that can survive such temperatures.

"We have resting stages of organisms that can go down to the temperature of liquid nitrogen, say 200 degrees below freezing," says Rothschild. "We certainly know that warm-blooded organisms can live in very cold temperatures in the poles - penguins and polar bears and so on - but even things like microbes that don't regulate their own temperature can survive down to 20 degrees below freezing and still be active."
Rothschild suggests that algae might be able to live in the patches of snow on Mars. Such algae blooms occur in places like the Arctic, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and the Rocky Mountains. She says these red pigmented blooms become so dense in snow patches on Earth that they're sometimes called "watermelon snow."

"These organisms during much of the year are living in the soil in a resting stage, maybe like you'd see in Mars between the times that it snows, and they can survive long periods like that," says Rothschild.

"And then when the conditions are right, they're able to germinate. A mobile stage goes up towards the surface, and they are able to photosynthesize, complete their life cycle, and then go back into this spore form."

Even though the melting period on Mars is over, Christensen says that some patches of snow still remain in the mid-latitudes because of dirt and dust that settled on top of the patches. These dirt-covered snow patches occur in the colder hollows, on slopes facing towards the poles. If that hadn't occurred, says Christensen, then the melting would have continued and the snow would be completely gone.

Rothschild says these layers of dust and dirt on top of the snow would make it difficult to observe any life forms with orbiting cameras. To find life in such places, she says, we'll have to dig underneath the dirt layers.

"We've done a fair amount of work studying microbes that live under layers of sand or gravel, both in beaches and in Yellowstone National Park," says Rothschild. "In such places, you can't see any of the organisms underneath the layers of sand or gravel, but there's a very active photosynthetic community based on algae."
What's Next
Mars Odyssey was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in April 2001 and arrived in Martian orbit in late October 2001. During the rest of the spacecraft's 917-day science mission, many of its priorities will highlight more of the current mysteries about Martian moisture.

In early 2004, two Mars Exploration Rovers will target what imagery indicates might have been ancient dry lake beds, as well as other geologically interesting sites. The European Space Agency, meanwhile, plans to launch a combined orbiter and lander mission in 2003. Its lander, named Beagle 2, will contain biological experiments designed to search for evidence of life on Mars