Starship Asterisk*

Ice - perhaps an ice layer rather than ice lakes.

The asteroid belt, including Ceres, is the result of a big crash as a planet was trying to form. Another planet had formed between Jupiter and this one, I call it Illo. Then when the protoplanet between Illo and Mars (I call Smithereens) tried to form, it crashed into Illo...before it fully formed. This caused: material from the crash to fling out away from the crash site. Illo's broken ice layer was gravitationally trapped by Saturn forming its rings, other light gaseous debris covered Saturn's ice layer. Illo crashed into Jupiter, creating a dent in Jupiter's ice layer and depositing red sulfur debris in the dent and depositing other gaseous debris to cover Jupiter's ice layer before the remaining stripped planet became gravitationally trapped as Jupiter's moon Io. Smithereens did not get to fully compact (like other planets) prior to the crash, this accounts for the density of Comet 67P, and I predict that Ceres will have a similar density (plus or minus 15%).

When a protoplanet's atomic material compacts due to the changing magnetic field of the core when the protoplanet starts to spin (spin starts when the protoplanet exits the spiral/vortex of nebula material that is an early stage of solar-system development), there is a lot of heat that is generated. This causes methane and water vapor to rise from the surface. When it rises high enough it freezes in cold space (some of the vapor condenses on the surface after the ice layer is present). This is why Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, maybe Neptune and many moons have ice layers (Neptune is formed from very light atomic material and only has a little methane, possibly not enough for a robust ice layer). Mercury's ice layer melted, ice layers on Venus and Mars eroded due to solar winds since they had very weak or no magnetosphere, and the drama of what happened to Earth's ice layer is out of the scope of this post. So steam was generated when the atomic material of Smithereens started compacting - for the piece of Smithereens called Ceres, did the steam get to form a complete ice layer which is now under a bunch of dirt debris from the crash, or is the ice eroded by solar winds so that only spots (lakes) are present? We'll have to find out.

Nitpicker wrote:

BDanielMayfield wrote:Ahem, something called a DWARF is called Texas-sized???

Bruce, a 196 cm tall Texan.

The surface area of Ceres is four times that of Texas. And if the area of Texas were reshaped into a circle, it would have a radius of 471 km.

Yes. I was attempting to make a humorous play on the common Texan penchant for bragging stating the facts.

BDanielMayfield wrote:

Nitpicker wrote:

BDanielMayfield wrote:Ahem, something called a DWARF is called Texas-sized???

Sticking to metric units favored by the scientifically inclined, the Wikipedia link on Ceres shows that it has a mean radius of 476 km, so it's diameter is about 952 km. TEXAS, on the other hand is 1,244 km wide (East-West) x 1,270 km (North-South).

Bruce, a 196 cm tall Texan.

The surface area of Ceres is four times that of Texas. And if the area of Texas were reshaped into a circle, it would have a radius of 471 km.

Yes. I was attempting to make a humorous play on the common Texan penchant for bragging stating the facts.

I'm from Queensland, mate (aka the Texas of Australia, aka the Deep North) so my ignorance prevented me from detecting your joke. Sorry.

sallyseaver wrote: ...
Smithereens did not get to fully compact (like other planets) prior to the crash, this accounts for the density of Comet 67P, and I predict that Ceres will have a similar density (plus or minus 15%).
...

Well, there's a lot of creative speculation in your post. It's fun discussion with colorful fabric pieces, but to make a quilt, the pieces have to fit together better. Putting it nicely, your story is pretty leaky

My one counter-point I'll make about Ceres is that a spherical body that size will not support 67P's low density ≤ 0.5g/cm³, and from its gravitational influence on other asteroids, its density is estimated to be ~4x greater than 67P.

I think you can cross that one off your list. You might enjoy tweaking your hypothesis anyway.

BDanielMayfield wrote:

Nitpicker wrote:

BDanielMayfield wrote:Ahem, something called a DWARF is called Texas-sized???

Sticking to metric units favored by the scientifically inclined, the Wikipedia link on Ceres shows that it has a mean radius of 476 km, so it's diameter is about 952 km. TEXAS, on the other hand is 1,244 km wide (East-West) x 1,270 km (North-South).

Bruce, a 196 cm tall Texan.

The surface area of Ceres is four times that of Texas. And if the area of Texas were reshaped into a circle, it would have a radius of 471 km.

Yes. I was attempting to make a humorous play on the common Texan penchant for bragging stating the facts.

And next, someone from Alaska is obligated to point out how appropriate it is for Texas to be the standard of measure for dwarf planets.

MarkBour wrote:

BDanielMayfield wrote:I was attempting to make a humorous play on the common Texan penchant for bragging stating the facts.

And next, someone from Alaska is obligated to point out how appropriate it is for Texas to be the standard of measure for dwarf planets.

Nice one Mark. Another reason to quit calling things "dwarf" in astronomy: it fosters regional ribbing.

Replanetize Pluto Dedwarf the Sun

alter-ego wrote:

sallyseaver wrote: ...
Smithereens did not get to fully compact (like other planets) prior to the crash, this accounts for the density of Comet 67P, and I predict that Ceres will have a similar density (plus or minus 15%).
...

Well, there's a lot of creative speculation in your post. It's fun discussion with colorful fabric pieces, but to make a quilt, the pieces have to fit together better. Putting it nicely, your story is pretty leaky

My one counter-point I'll make about Ceres is that a spherical body that size will not support 67P's low density ≤ 0.5g/cm³, and from its gravitational influence on other asteroids, its density is estimated to be ~4x greater than 67P.

I think you can cross that one off your list. You might enjoy tweaking your hypothesis anyway.

Thanks for the info on the estimated density of Ceres. It is quite a bit bigger and it is still less dense than Io and Mars at 2.077 g/cm^3. If it properly compacted like other planets, it would be more dense than Io and less dense or comparable to Mars. I feel that I have fleshed out details of my quilt in my book The Birth of the Earth, what else seems leaky, besides the density of Ceres? ...maybe the density of Jupiter, since I believe there is an atmosphere under the ice layer and a rocky planet below?

sallyseaver wrote:Thanks for the info on the estimated density of Ceres. It is quite a bit bigger and it is still less dense than Io and Mars at 2.077 g/cm^3. If it properly compacted like other planets, it would be more dense than Io and less dense or comparable to Mars. I feel that I have fleshed out details of my quilt in my book The Birth of the Earth, what else seems leaky, besides the density of Ceres? ...maybe the density of Jupiter, since I believe there is an atmosphere under the ice layer and a rocky planet below?

You'll find the book right next to The Birth of the Dearth of Credibility.

Nitpicker wrote:

sallyseaver wrote:Thanks for the info on the estimated density of Ceres. It is quite a bit bigger and it is still less dense than Io and Mars at 2.077 g/cm^3. If it properly compacted like other planets, it would be more dense than Io and less dense or comparable to Mars. I feel that I have fleshed out details of my quilt in my book The Birth of the Earth, what else seems leaky, besides the density of Ceres? ...maybe the density of Jupiter, since I believe there is an atmosphere under the ice layer and a rocky planet below?

You'll find the book right next to The Birth of the Dearth of Credibility.

So if you were alive a thousand years ago, you'd definitely be one of the Flat Earth and Earth-Is-The-Center-of-the-Universe people, right? I don't see how your comment furthers the discussion. It just says that you can't believe anything that is different from the Standard Model.

JUNO is visiting Jupiter and it should be able to verify the ice layer on Jupiter.

sallyseaver wrote:JUNO is visiting Jupiter and it should be able to verify the ice layer on Jupiter.

Or fail to find any evidence for it at all. It is very hard to take someone who imagines wildly skeptical ideas and then fails to show any skepticism of them seriously.

sallyseaver wrote:So if you were alive a thousand years ago, you'd definitely be one of the Flat Earth and Earth-Is-The-Center-of-the-Universe people, right? I don't see how your comment furthers the discussion. It just says that you can't believe anything that is different from the Standard Model.

JUNO is visiting Jupiter and it should be able to verify the ice layer on Jupiter.

I don't know what I'd have been like if I'd been alive a thousand years ago. If I was very lucky, I might have been in Persia during the Golden Age of Islam, and influenced by Hellenistic astronomy, where heliocentric ideas were first documented. (More likely, I'd have been somewhere else, up to my neck in poop and dreaming of a better world.)

My comment was not intended to further discussion. It was intended to point out to other readers of this forum, my low opinion of your book, which I consider to be pseudo-scientific. The standard model is vastly more credible than yours, though I'll add that if a significant number of actual scientists in this field begin to give your model credibility, I will be the first to offer you an apology. More incredible things have happened.

Ceres appears to have an overall albedo comparable to Earth's moon, which, at only 7%, makes for a poor reflector of sunlight indeed. The mysterious bright spots have such a dramatically higher albedo than the surrounding terrain that what they bring to mind is snow. I wonder whether there might be a subsurface layer of frost that recent impacts have uncovered, exposing a protoplanet-wide "permafrost" as it were?

Ken kilpatrick wrote:Ceres appears to have an overall albedo comparable to Earth's moon, which, at only 7%, makes for a poor reflector of sunlight indeed. The mysterious bright spots have such a dramatically higher albedo than the surrounding terrain that what they bring to mind is snow. I wonder whether there might be a subsurface layer of frost that recent impacts have uncovered, exposing a protoplanet-wide "permafrost" as it were?

It is easy to be fooled by an image that has had its contrast stretched to bring out detail, however. Given a 9% overall albedo, and "white" spots that are only 10% brighter than their surrounds, that means those areas might only be around 10% albedo. That is, just a one or two percent variation between the light and dark areas. We might barely notice that with our eyes.

Nitpicker wrote:

sallyseaver wrote:So if you were alive a thousand years ago, you'd definitely be one of the Flat Earth and Earth-Is-The-Center-of-the-Universe people, right? I don't see how your comment furthers the discussion. It just says that you can't believe anything that is different from the Standard Model.

JUNO is visiting Jupiter and it should be able to verify the ice layer on Jupiter.

I don't know what I'd have been like if I'd been alive a thousand years ago. If I was very lucky, I might have been in Persia during the Golden Age of Islam, and influenced by Hellenistic astronomy, where heliocentric ideas were first documented. (More likely, I'd have been somewhere else, up to my neck in poop and dreaming of a better world.)

My comment was not intended to further discussion. It was intended to point out to other readers of this forum, my low opinion of your book, which I consider to be pseudo-scientific. The standard model is vastly more credible than yours, though I'll add that if a significant number of actual scientists in this field begin to give your model credibility, I will be the first to offer you an apology. More incredible things have happened.

Thank you for your response. I like seeing your answer to the what-if of living a thousand years ago.

If you read the book and had a low opinion, it would be one thing; but I don't think you have, have you?
Is it because I am a woman that you think it is pseudo science, or because presenting a new model for consideration itself makes it "pseudo-science"? I did tailor the book to a general audience, but from my degrees in physics and math [UC Irvine], I do not know where it is lacking. I need other thoughtful people such as yourself to review the new model and evaluate it. It is not wrong just because it is different from commonly held beliefs, do you agree? [I think that your ability to do what-if thinking makes you ideal for assessing a new theoretical model. ]

The model I propose starts with a nebula that turns into a vortex and then a flat spiral; this is in keeping with the standard model. It envisions a proto-planet (different from standard model) to be comprised of a big shell of atoms accreted around a group of metal atoms. Metal atoms are heavier, so it makes sense, right? And the nebula would most likely have atoms and ions rather than molecules, right? Anyway, the only serious review I've had so far is posted on Amazon and the reader (who I do not know) found my proposed model to have merit.

By the way, it is not that easy to get a serious review of new ideas from scientists in the field. They are all very busy. As you probably know, a patent clerk was able to get his articles reviewed and published by a science journal in 1905, but it doesn't work that way anymore. You may think, well it had to do with the content submitted. But ANY content submitted by an independent scholar is automatically not reviewed these days. And new (theoretical) foundations are not really possible from within the house built on top of the old foundation.

geckzilla wrote:

sallyseaver wrote:JUNO is visiting Jupiter and it should be able to verify the ice layer on Jupiter.

Or fail to find any evidence for it at all. It is very hard to take someone who imagines wildly skeptical ideas and then fails to show any skepticism of them seriously.

If JUNO project team looks for an ice layer under the gaseous debris on top and finds that the planet is indeed the way standard theory says it is, without an ice layer, then I would withdraw my proposed theory. I understand that people will be skeptical about a new, very-different theory; but, it just seems to me that posts should be respectful and we are here to discuss ideas, right? I started posting because I was asked what I thought the Bright Spots on Ceres are. My idea involves an ice layer covered with rocky dust debris.

Regarding the ice layer on Jupiter, here is an infra-red image of Jupiter (opposite side from its Red Spot]. Maybe this image published by the European Southern Observatory (taken with the Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics Demonstrator prototype) will help your imagination.



The ice layer on Ceres would most likely be different; it is only a piece of what would have been the mantle of a planet. But it would have started out hot, releasing steam... and face it, in cold space, the water molecules from steam are going to freeze.

sallyseaver wrote:Is it because I am a woman that you think it is pseudo science, or because presenting a new model for consideration itself makes it "pseudo-science"?

I will say that your post sounded awfully pseudoscientific even without knowing whether you are a man or a woman. This is a loaded question and paints an unfair picture of Nitpicker to start off.

sallyseaver wrote:I did tailor the book to a general audience, but from my degrees in physics and math [UC Irvine], I do not know where it is lacking. I need other thoughtful people such as yourself to review the new model and evaluate it. It is not wrong just because it is different from commonly held beliefs, do you agree? [I think that your ability to do what-if thinking makes you ideal for assessing a new theoretical model. ]

It's worth noting that degrees and education do not preclude one from creating crank theories and having psuedoscientific beliefs. Otherwise, what would we even need peer review for? Those ideas have to be weeded out. Some perfectly good scientists have held their own crank theories near and dear to their hearts until the day they died and the theories died with them. Of course, you don't hear much about all the truly bad ideas that are had because it's much easier to focus on the ones that seem to be on the right track.

sallyseaver wrote:By the way, it is not that easy to get a serious review of new ideas from scientists in the field. They are all very busy. As you probably know, a patent clerk was able to get his articles reviewed and published by a science journal in 1905, but it doesn't work that way anymore. You may think, well it had to do with the content submitted. But ANY content submitted by an independent scholar is automatically not reviewed these days. And new (theoretical) foundations are not really possible from within the house built on top of the old foundation.

I'm going to be perfectly honest here and say this sounds a lot like many other cranks out there. Does this mean your idea has no merit? No. But the old, "No one takes me seriously!" and then publish a book strategy to try to garner some attention seems to be a common path.

Some further context is also required for you to understand our reluctance at this forum: We have very few real scientists here. Some great, smart, people for sure, but very few real scientists. With that in mind we try hard to keep things clear for the people who frequent the forum. This means that alternate theories don't have much room for discussion here. In fact, it's against the rules. Furthermore, we definitely do receive traffic from truly crackpot individuals. It is sometimes hard to immediately recognize a crackpot but anyone discussing alternate theories tends to set off alarms. So please keep the spirit of the forum in mind from here on out. In an ideal world all ideas would have merit and we could all be smart enough to discuss them seriously but in the real world most ideas are crap and a lot of people don't have the necessary education to distinguish pseudoscience from actual science. (Note: Nitpicker is someone capable of such a task.)

sallyseaver wrote:Thank you for your response. I like seeing your answer to the what-if of living a thousand years ago.

If you read the book and had a low opinion, it would be one thing; but I don't think you have, have you?
Is it because I am a woman that you think it is pseudo science, or because presenting a new model for consideration itself makes it "pseudo-science"? I did tailor the book to a general audience, but from my degrees in physics and math [UC Irvine], I do not know where it is lacking. I need other thoughtful people such as yourself to review the new model and evaluate it. It is not wrong just because it is different from commonly held beliefs, do you agree? [I think that your ability to do what-if thinking makes you ideal for assessing a new theoretical model. ]

The model I propose starts with a nebula that turns into a vortex and then a flat spiral; this is in keeping with the standard model. It envisions a proto-planet (different from standard model) to be comprised of a big shell of atoms accreted around a group of metal atoms. Metal atoms are heavier, so it makes sense, right? And the nebula would most likely have atoms and ions rather than molecules, right? Anyway, the only serious review I've had so far is posted on Amazon and the reader (who I do not know) found my proposed model to have merit.

By the way, it is not that easy to get a serious review of new ideas from scientists in the field. They are all very busy. As you probably know, a patent clerk was able to get his articles reviewed and published by a science journal in 1905, but it doesn't work that way anymore. You may think, well it had to do with the content submitted. But ANY content submitted by an independent scholar is automatically not reviewed these days. And new (theoretical) foundations are not really possible from within the house built on top of the old foundation.

In addition to what geckzilla has said ... in this day and age, one's work cannot be considered formally scientific unless it is peer reviewed. Your book seems to offer a very bold collection of new hypotheses. Perhaps if you were less ambitious in the first instance, and attempted to get papers of significantly reduced scope, published in peer-reviewed journals, targeted to professional scientists, where you focussed on particular aspects of your hypotheses and why they differ from the consensus model, you might find some success. But it is very hard if you are not actually employed as a scientist. Science is very institutionalised these days and there are more professional scientists than ever before, and many more wannabes. Anything purporting to be science these days, which does not conform to the modern scientific method, can be classified as pseudoscience by definition.

geckzilla wrote:

sallyseaver wrote:Is it because I am a woman that you think it is pseudo science, or because presenting a new model for consideration itself makes it "pseudo-science"?

I will say that your post sounded awfully pseudoscientific even without knowing whether you are a man or a woman. This is a loaded question and paints an unfair picture of Nitpicker to start off.

sallyseaver wrote:I did tailor the book to a general audience, but from my degrees in physics and math [UC Irvine], I do not know where it is lacking. I need other thoughtful people such as yourself to review the new model and evaluate it. It is not wrong just because it is different from commonly held beliefs, do you agree? [I think that your ability to do what-if thinking makes you ideal for assessing a new theoretical model. ]

It's worth noting that degrees and education do not preclude one from creating crank theories and having psuedoscientific beliefs. Otherwise, what would we even need peer review for? Those ideas have to be weeded out. Some perfectly good scientists have held their own crank theories near and dear to their hearts until the day they died and the theories died with them. Of course, you don't hear much about all the truly bad ideas that are had because it's much easier to focus on the ones that seem to be on the right track.

sallyseaver wrote:By the way, it is not that easy to get a serious review of new ideas from scientists in the field. They are all very busy. As you probably know, a patent clerk was able to get his articles reviewed and published by a science journal in 1905, but it doesn't work that way anymore. You may think, well it had to do with the content submitted. But ANY content submitted by an independent scholar is automatically not reviewed these days. And new (theoretical) foundations are not really possible from within the house built on top of the old foundation.

I'm going to be perfectly honest here and say this sounds a lot like many other cranks out there. Does this mean your idea has no merit? No. But the old, "No one takes me seriously!" and then publish a book strategy to try to garner some attention seems to be a common path.

Some further context is also required for you to understand our reluctance at this forum: We have very few real scientists here. Some great, smart, people for sure, but very few real scientists. With that in mind we try hard to keep things clear for the people who frequent the forum. This means that alternate theories don't have much room for discussion here. In fact, it's against the rules. Furthermore, we definitely do receive traffic from truly crackpot individuals. It is sometimes hard to immediately recognize a crackpot but anyone discussing alternate theories tends to set off alarms. So please keep the spirit of the forum in mind from here on out. In an ideal world all ideas would have merit and we could all be smart enough to discuss them seriously but in the real world most ideas are crap and a lot of people don't have the necessary education to distinguish pseudoscience from actual science. (Note: Nitpicker is someone capable of such a task.)

Ok. Got it.

For the record, I did not say that no one takes me seriously. What I spoke to was the notion that a) the ability to get peer reviewed is only for a small minority of institution-associated scientists that are in with the most notable scientists (which is actually understandable given the amount of papers being generated), and b) research is approved based on criteria associated with the accepted framework/paradigm. I get it that the forum needs to keep things consistent with the current paradigm... just like post-doc research and journal articles and other avenues of science discussion. It's okay. I will honor your words of direction and understanding.

sallyseaver wrote:Ok. Got it.

For the record, I did not say that no one takes me seriously. What I spoke to was the notion that a) the ability to get peer reviewed is only for a small minority of institution-associated scientists that are in with the most notable scientists (which is actually understandable given the amount of papers being generated), and b) research is approved based on criteria associated with the accepted framework/paradigm. I get it that the forum needs to keep things consistent with the current paradigm... just like post-doc research and journal articles and other avenues of science discussion. It's okay. I will honor your words of direction and understanding.

For what it's worth, despite my initial misgivings, I don't think you're a crackpot. I have no way of assessing your theory's individual strengths and weaknesses myself but I hope you continue to work on it if it seems like the right thing to do. Science seems to involve a lot more blood, sweat, and tears than most people realize. I typed in "can I be a scientist?" to Google a couple of days ago and the first result is a letter of discouragement titled "Don't Become a Scientist!"

Nitpicker wrote:
In addition to what geckzilla has said ... in this day and age, one's work cannot be considered formally scientific unless it is peer reviewed. Your book seems to offer a very bold collection of new hypotheses. Perhaps if you were less ambitious in the first instance, and attempted to get papers of significantly reduced scope, published in peer-reviewed journals, targeted to professional scientists, where you focussed on particular aspects of your hypotheses and why they differ from the consensus model, you might find some success. But it is very hard if you are not actually employed as a scientist. Science is very institutionalised these days and there are more professional scientists than ever before, and many more wannabes. Anything purporting to be science these days, which does not conform to the modern scientific method, can be classified as pseudoscience by definition.

Thank you for your thoughtful response. And thank you for putting words to your definition of pseudoscience.

Before I leave this thread ---
Do you agree that peer-review of a paper document is not part of the scientific method? Rather, one asserts a hypothesis and then does measurement or an experiment to verify either the hypothesis or implications of the hypothesis. So if Ceres has an ice layer that is covered by the dust and rocky debris, will you see this as a validation of some new hypotheses (that I have proposed)? And if Ceres has an ice layer, wouldn't it be good to know if Jupiter does?

This is not about me. It is about furthering our understanding of the world around us.

sallyseaver wrote:Do you agree that peer-review of a paper document is not part of the scientific method?

There is no THE scientific method. The expression refers to a broad way of gathering knowledge about the natural world. Most scientists (myself included) would consider peer review and consensus within the specialized scientific community to both be very important components of how science works today.

Chris Peterson wrote:

sallyseaver wrote:Do you agree that peer-review of a paper document is not part of the scientific method?

There is no THE scientific method. The expression refers to a broad way of gathering knowledge about the natural world. Most scientists (myself included) would consider peer review and consensus within the specialized scientific community to both be very important components of how science works today.

I totally agree that peer review and consensus within the specialized scientific community are very important aspects of how the pursuit of science knowledge works.

I was addressing Nit's definition of pseudoscience. And generally, the scientific method - as it is taught - is something that can be done by individual scientists. Testable results with a hypothesis that can be shown to be true or false is the key. This is not anything against Nitpicker (who understands the workings of science just fine), just part of my attempt to reason from definition, and to say that my hypotheses are testable, so I hope they can emerge from the cloud of the "pseudoscience" label.

I also agree with you that what we want for the pursuit of science knowledge has not been codified and defined very well to date, i.e. "THE method of science" does not exist. (It's sort of like - I know it when I see it.) I hope you realize, however, that there is a lot of subjectivity built in to the peer-review process, as opposed to the objectivity of experimental results.

geckzilla wrote:

sallyseaver wrote:Ok. Got it.

For the record, I did not say that no one takes me seriously. What I spoke to was the notion that a) the ability to get peer reviewed is only for a small minority of institution-associated scientists that are in with the most notable scientists (which is actually understandable given the amount of papers being generated), and b) research is approved based on criteria associated with the accepted framework/paradigm. I get it that the forum needs to keep things consistent with the current paradigm... just like post-doc research and journal articles and other avenues of science discussion. It's okay. I will honor your words of direction and understanding.

For what it's worth, despite my initial misgivings, I don't think you're a crackpot. I have no way of assessing your theory's individual strengths and weaknesses myself but I hope you continue to work on it if it seems like the right thing to do. Science seems to involve a lot more blood, sweat, and tears than most people realize. I typed in "can I be a scientist?" to Google a couple of days ago and the first result is a letter of discouragement titled "Don't Become a Scientist!"

Thank you VERY much Geck!

Your understanding and encouragement are like water in the desert --- and valuable to me.

I think the jury is still out on my crackpot status

alter-ego wrote: The mystery link: http://space.io9.com/just-what-are-thos ... 1684160250 claims the spots are 9% brighter than the surrounding areas.

I like this idea from this article posted by Alter-Ego:
Ceres could have a rock core, an ice mantle, and a thin crust of debris and dust. Meteor impacts could burst through the crust, exposing ice below. (For more on this theory, tell NASA to fund Andy Rivkin's research.)

I'd vote to fund Andy Rivkin's research.