This is awesome! I love that Mars continues to baffle, astound, and fascinate us. Sometimes our 21st century hubris makes us think we are reaching some kind of peak knowledge, but moments like this prove that we yet know so little.
In particular, the geology of Mars in an incredibly fascinating topic. If you're looking for a good primer on the subject, I highly recommend Mapping Mars by Oliver Morton.
Mapping Mars contains a history of the science, highlighting the major contributors to the field and augmented with interviews from such notable science fiction authors as Kim Stanley Robinson. A good discussion is, for example, how much water exists on the planet. Consensus is now that there is water somewhere, but exactly how much water, where it sits, how it flows: great questions that are attacked with lucid explanations.
Hats off to NASA and human curiosity for this grand adventure.
In the Mars trilogy (Red Mars/Green Mars/Blue Mars) by Kim Stanley Robinson, the term "areology" was coined for describing geology-on-Mars. I always thought that was a great word.
Your point is a good one. However just to interject tangentially, hubris is demonstrably not a 21st century phenomenon, nor imho will it cease to be a phenomenon in any future period of human existence.
"Peaks of knowledge" have existed throughout our collective history and the single uniting feature of each is that they are never peaks. Local maxima perhaps, but the upslope of discovery always reasserts itself eventually. Afaik, nothing indicates that the future will differ in this regard.
Pardon my idiotic question, but why don't they just drive over there and check them out? Or are they just in a totally different place than the rover (like asking why someone in North America can't just hop over and check out Uluru)?
Apparently there are two active rovers on Mars right now [1], both of which have an average speed of about 0.02mph [2,3]. I haven't checked out the geography of the situation but it's not looking promising.
That is not an idiotic question at all, it's a very good question. The reason is that (as you surmised) the rovers are very far away. Which begs the obvious question: why didn't they land a rover closer? That's a much harder question to answer. Landing site selection is a complex and somewhat political process. But there have been two polar missions, one successful, one not:
This stuff blows me away. I think, holy crap this planet has all sorts of real exo-planet kinds of weirdness. I love the idea of reverse icicles although for the life of me I can't imagine what would hold them up once the CO2 gas has vaporized out.
One part of me wants to build another Curiosity style rover and catch the next Earth/Mars orbital cycle and put it down near stuff like this.
I can believe folks would find this as inspiring as looking back at the planet from the Moon.
Certianly do seem to follow a frost/freeze pattern in some ways, even if they do tend to have a bag of flour type directional point. So can see the reverse icicles. Question is it a biological or a chemical reaction. I do feel that it could be chemical but thats just a hunch and that is what makes it a holy crap mystery.
Is there any chance they could be plants? relying on underground water reserves and appearing every spring to throw around some pollen before slinking back into the cool darkness.
It seems like we'd be able to tell if they are geysers or something else by having a few frames of photos? A geyser would be moving in some way you'd think?
> they might be colonies of photosynthetic Martian microorganisms, warmed from the sun, now sunbathing in plain view.
That's incredible. Is that really possible? I wonder why the rover doesn't check them out? It seems weird it's digging through soil looking for chemicals possibly related to life when there's potential life out in plain view.
When planning a landing site for each rover mission, NASA considers a variety of factors and makes a best-guess as to the fruitfulness of each site from a scientific perspective.
Clearly a team of brilliant scientists has not failed to consider the possibility of exploring these strange spidery features, but they have decided against it for the time being.
It doesn't really make sense to assess their "strange priorities" as an outsider looking in with very limited knowledge as to how their decision making process actually works.
From what I read, there's a big concern about contaminating Mars with Earth-based bacterium. To ensure the drill would be useful after landing, they pre-set one of the drill bits. By doing that, they broke the sanitized enclosure, and there may be contaminants present that survived the trip. They are supposedly avoiding signs of life with Curiosity.
The guess is random geyser's powered by CO2 plumes, so probably dangerous for the rover to check out directly. Or, maybe they will check it out during the time of the year it's cold. Not sure how far away the rover is from this, either.
Dangerous how? Toxic to humans? At risk of unsettling sand around a rover/human? Is the question asking if they are something that would consciously attack someone?
Everything is dangerous. The key to mitigating that danger is planning ahead for it. A leaf seems harmless, but infection from a cut the leaf gave you could kill you. A marshmallow is fluffy and soft, but if you swallow it without chewing, it could expand and suffocate you.
Asking if something is dangerous is ridiculous. Asking what it is and how to safely handle it is not. The article does a much better job portraying this than the headline does.
It feels weird to realize that according to Mars, we're the aliens invading the planet. Makes me wonder about all the extraterrestrial "rovers" on our planet.
[+] [-] martian|13 years ago|reply
In particular, the geology of Mars in an incredibly fascinating topic. If you're looking for a good primer on the subject, I highly recommend Mapping Mars by Oliver Morton.
Mapping Mars contains a history of the science, highlighting the major contributors to the field and augmented with interviews from such notable science fiction authors as Kim Stanley Robinson. A good discussion is, for example, how much water exists on the planet. Consensus is now that there is water somewhere, but exactly how much water, where it sits, how it flows: great questions that are attacked with lucid explanations.
Hats off to NASA and human curiosity for this grand adventure.
[+] [-] slashclee|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philbo|13 years ago|reply
"Peaks of knowledge" have existed throughout our collective history and the single uniting feature of each is that they are never peaks. Local maxima perhaps, but the upslope of discovery always reasserts itself eventually. Afaik, nothing indicates that the future will differ in this regard.
[+] [-] mhp|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shmageggy|13 years ago|reply
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rover_%28space_exploration%29#A...
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_rover#Design_and_co...
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_rover#Specifications
[+] [-] lisper|13 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Polar_Lander http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(spacecraft)
[+] [-] woodchuck64|13 years ago|reply
According to Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_geyser this only occurs in the south polar region and Curiosity is near the equator.
(Gale Crater: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolis_quadrangle)
[+] [-] InclinedPlane|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|13 years ago|reply
One part of me wants to build another Curiosity style rover and catch the next Earth/Mars orbital cycle and put it down near stuff like this.
I can believe folks would find this as inspiring as looking back at the planet from the Moon.
[+] [-] Zenst|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brador|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] debacle|13 years ago|reply
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/PIA11858_...
[+] [-] DougWebb|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ry0ohki|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] creamyhorror|13 years ago|reply
-- a commenter on that page, Melissa Swanson
[+] [-] Eliezer|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thebigshane|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tocomment|13 years ago|reply
That's incredible. Is that really possible? I wonder why the rover doesn't check them out? It seems weird it's digging through soil looking for chemicals possibly related to life when there's potential life out in plain view.
NASA has some very strange priorities.
[+] [-] kaizendc|13 years ago|reply
Clearly a team of brilliant scientists has not failed to consider the possibility of exploring these strange spidery features, but they have decided against it for the time being.
It doesn't really make sense to assess their "strange priorities" as an outsider looking in with very limited knowledge as to how their decision making process actually works.
[+] [-] gfosco|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qdog|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonknee|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] diggan|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jl6|13 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] MattBearman|13 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] freehunter|13 years ago|reply
Everything is dangerous. The key to mitigating that danger is planning ahead for it. A leaf seems harmless, but infection from a cut the leaf gave you could kill you. A marshmallow is fluffy and soft, but if you swallow it without chewing, it could expand and suffocate you.
Asking if something is dangerous is ridiculous. Asking what it is and how to safely handle it is not. The article does a much better job portraying this than the headline does.
[+] [-] dpcx|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ljd|13 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridges_Law_of_Headlines
[+] [-] sidcool|13 years ago|reply
http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/10vrag/are_those_sp...
[+] [-] aw3c2|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] melvinmt|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jhuckestein|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ximeng|13 years ago|reply
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_024736_2565
Edit:
Ahah, here we are, about 1km:
http://hirise-pds.lpl.arizona.edu/PDS/EXTRAS/RDR/ESP/ORB_024...
[+] [-] marcoamorales|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] macey|13 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] VMG|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nacker|13 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwE8m50sbWk&playnext=1&#...
[+] [-] ktizo|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thebigshane|13 years ago|reply