APOD and General Astronomy Discussion Forum
https://asterisk.apod.com/
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/sc ... hanespike/Chris Peterson wrote:It is far from certain. The measurements have anomalous characteristics, and there are multiple non-biological hypotheses.Sawngrighter wrote:With the seemingly continuously created methane seeping into Mars atmosphere it is certain there is life in Mars, if not on Mars.
Exactly my point. As noted in your link: "This temporary increase in methane -- sharply up and then back down -- tells us there must be some relatively localized source," said Sushil Atreya of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Curiosity rover science team. "There are many possible sources, biological or non-biological, such as interaction of water and rock."Sawngrighter wrote:http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/sc ... hanespike/Chris Peterson wrote:It is far from certain. The measurements have anomalous characteristics, and there are multiple non-biological hypotheses.Sawngrighter wrote:With the seemingly continuously created methane seeping into Mars atmosphere it is certain there is life in Mars, if not on Mars.
Radioactive 14C is constantly being created in atmospheres by the interaction of cosmic rays with atmospheric nitrogen...but there is little nitrogen in the martian atmosphere (and hence little radioactive 14C).saturno2 wrote:
Methane found on Mars could have
two origins: geological or biological.
If methane has C-12 is biological.
Possible life on Mars.
If not cows, how about a lot of bull? I'm sure, Neufer, your talents can find something appropriate.neufer wrote:Radioactive 14C is constantly being created in atmospheres by the interaction of cosmic rays with atmospheric nitrogen...but there is little nitrogen in the martian atmosphere (and hence little radioactive 14C).saturno2 wrote:
Methane found on Mars could have
two origins: geological or biological.
If methane has C-12 is biological.
Possible life on Mars.
In photosynthetic pathways on Earth 12C is absorbed slightly more easily than 13C such that cow methane probably does have more 12C than 13C (as compared with atmospheric CO2) but there is no guarantee that that would be true on Mars.
Bull's-Eye on Mars RevealedSawngrighter wrote:
If not cows, how about a lot of bull? I'm sure, Neufer, your talents can find something appropriate.
I think that it's from the other end Art.neufer wrote:Bull's-Eye on Mars RevealedSawngrighter wrote:
If not cows, how about a lot of bull? I'm sure, Neufer, your talents can find something appropriate.
At least it looks like a Bull's-"Eye"...but possibly it's a source for methane.
geckzilla wrote:
They say cleanliness is next to godliness but perhaps a more enlightened approach is to accept those microbes as part of our identity rather than considering them as filth sullying our otherwise pure bodies.
Short telescopic exposures of the Earth or the Sun are just fine from a manned spacecraft.geckzilla wrote:
At some point there was a conversation about why the ISS doesn't host a space telescope of some sort and the answer was that it is way too dirty around there. Space telescopes have to completely avoid the vicinity of the ISS. I don't think they're worried about bacteria, though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia wrote:
<<Thomas Gold, a professor of astronomy, suggested in 1960 the hypothesis of "Cosmic Garbage", that life on Earth might have originated accidentally from a pile of waste products dumped on Earth long ago by extraterrestrial beings.>>
Long exposures can be accumulated over periods of many weeks even though the Hubble moves around a lot because there are no stupid humans moving around in unpredictable ways.geckzilla wrote:
Long exposures can be accumulated over periods of many weeks even though the ISS moves around a lot.
The ISS wouldn't want an astronomical telescope too close to the ISS because:geckzilla wrote:
The idea is to have something like Hubble nearby or attached so that if something goes wrong it's serviceable. All the dirt around the ISS throws a wrench in that plan though.
It is popular knowledge that the ISS occupants throw their laundry out the hatch. Who knows what other stuff is floating around out there among all the ISS's moving parts and the things that can open and close on it? Well, someone does, apparently. Also apparently at Hubble's current position its mirrors are more or less pristine even after all this time.. . . the space around the ISS is full of gases, liquids and other debris jettisoned from the station that could gum up Hubble's optics.
"Gases, liquids and other debris" gumming up Hubble's opticsgeckzilla wrote:It is popular knowledge that the ISS occupants throw their laundry out the hatch. Who knows what other stuff is floating around out there among all the ISS's moving parts and the things that can open and close on it? Well, someone does, apparently. Also apparently at Hubble's current position its mirrors are more or less pristine even after all this time.http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-06/fyi-why-isnt-hubble-space-telescope-just-attached-international-space-station wrote:
. . . the space around the ISS is full of gases, liquids and other debris jettisoned from the station that could gum up Hubble's optics.
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-06/fyi-why-isnt-hubble-space-telescope-just-attached-international-space-station wrote:
<<Assuming that it could survive the trip, attaching [Hubble] to the station would make it almost unusable, says chief Hubble engineer John Grunsfeld. It captures such highly detailed images because it's free from any disturbances, atmospheric or otherwise. It's designed to stay very, very still. "Once its camera locks onto an object, it's unflinchable," Grunsfeld says. The vibrations of gear on the ISS would make such observations impossible.>>
Which is certainly a good point. The main thing is, there's simply no good reason to have a telescope at the ISS. That location would offer no significant advantages to offset the many obvious difficulties. Even the Hubble Telescope is poorly located, which is why we don't see its major successors being placed in low Earth orbit.neufer wrote:Besides mentioning the inevitable problem of collisions between
Hubble and ISS (or ISS's "other debris") my point was mostly about:http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-06/fyi-why-isnt-hubble-space-telescope-just-attached-international-space-station wrote:
<<Assuming that it could survive the trip, attaching [Hubble] to the station would make it almost unusable, says chief Hubble engineer John Grunsfeld. It captures such highly detailed images because it's free from any disturbances, atmospheric or otherwise. It's designed to stay very, very still. "Once its camera locks onto an object, it's unflinchable," Grunsfeld says. The vibrations of gear on the ISS would make such observations impossible.>>
saturno2 wrote:
NASA scientists studied the meteorite of Martian origin: Yamato 000593.
They found traces of possible biological processes produced on Mars millions of years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamato_000593 wrote: <<Yamato 000593 (or Y000593) is the second largest meteorite from Mars found on Earth. The 41st Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition (JARE) found the meteorite in late December 2000 on the Yamato Glacier. Studies suggest the Martian meteorite was formed about 1.3 billion years ago from a lava flow on Mars. An impact occurred on Mars about 12 million years ago and ejected the meteorite from the Martian surface into space. The meteorite landed on Earth in Antarctica about 50,000 years ago. The mass of the meteorite is 13.7 kg (30 lb) and has been found to contain evidence of past water alteration.
At a microscopic level, spheres are found in the meteorite that are rich in carbon compared to surrounding areas that lack such spheres. The carbon-rich spheres and the observed micro-tunnels may have been formed by biotic activity, according to NASA scientists.
Japanese scientists from the National Institute of Polar Research reported in 2003 that the meteorite contains iddingsite, which forms from the weathering of basalt in the presence of liquid water. In addition, NASA researchers reported in February 2014 that they also found carbon-rich spheres encased in multiple layers of iddingsite, as well as microtubular features emanating from iddingsite veins displaying curved, undulating shapes consistent with bio-alteration textures that have been observed in terrestrial basaltic glass. However, the scientific consensus is that "morphology alone cannot be used unambiguously as a tool for primitive life detection." Interpretation of morphology is notoriously subjective, and its use alone has led to numerous errors of interpretation. According to the NASA team, the presence of carbon and lack of corresponding cations is consistent with the occurrence of organic matter embedded in iddingsite. The NASA researchers indicated that mass spectrometry may provide deeper insight into the nature of the carbon, and could distinguish between abiotic and biologic carbon incorporation and alteration.>>
'geckzilla wrote:I had two ideas (already thought of by other people of course) about these space telescopes. One would think we could attach something like SOFIA to the ISS. There is apparently no benefit over the airplane method, though. The other is to put an infrared telescope on the coldest part of the moon, and there are a whole host of issues with that, one of them also being dirt.
