On 17/2/2003, Paul
Williams wrote:
The good news is that there is an amazing amount of water ice on Mars.
The bad news is that the amount of C02 is apparently much too low for a
'terraforming' greenhouse effect to be initiated using this.
"At any rate, Ingersoll and Byrne say that finding the missing carbon
dioxide, or accounting for its absence, is now a major goal of Mars
research."*
NASA and The European Space Agency are at the moment preparing to
launch Mars landers later this year. - Should be interesting.
Charles de G posted:
I've
been reading "Monuments Of Mars" by Richard C
Hoagland, quite interesting and certainly NON von Daniken
material. Hoagland claims that there was a "Flood" on Mars
during the planet's past and some of the features of the Mars-scape are
evidence of this "Flood" .But one thing I have concerns about is
his identification of some "Fossils" as being 3km in length.
Now, on this planet there is NOTHING of that size, not even
Baluchitherium or Sivatherium. Nor even a Giant Squid [well not
yet anyway]. And he does provide photographic evidence from Viking and
Mars Explorer of his claims.
Paul Williams
replied:
I
guess that all I can say is that _disinformation_ is available at a price:
http://www.ufoaudio.com/authors/hoagland.html
The
so-called 'Face' on Mars has been clearly shown by NASA to be an illusion.
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/extended_may2001/face/
Hoagland
still shows the original 1976 Viking photo without showing the clear newer images.
http://www.enterprisemission.com/dayIR.htm
As
gently as I can: I feel that Hoagland is at best 'mistaken' in his claimed beliefs...
Peter
Macinnis responded
At
12:28 17/02/03 +1000, you wrote:
>The
good news is that there is an amazing amount of water ice on Mars.
>The bad news is that the amount of C02 is apparently much too low
for a
>'terraforming' greenhouse effect to be initiated using this.
It
is more important to have enough of each so that fuel synthesis can be
carried out on the surface of Mars, enough to get an expedition back
into orbit -- that is the long-range NASA planning. They are
looking at beaming energy down from space to 'rectennas' made of
surface iron in a robot plant.
Paul Williams replied:
I will look this up - but if you have links to the relevent
information, I would be pleased to follow them.
I think I understand the need for carbon, oxygen and hydrogen for fuel
synthesis...
The robot iron foundry I know nothing about...
Obviously, a microwave receiver would be necessary...
More information please...
Peter replied:
There will be something on the NASA site -- I gave the word rectenna as
a useful search word.
See http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/msad03mar99_1.htmfor
starters.
For more, subscribe to a good Australian encyclopedia :-)
Paul responded:
Elegant proposals. I hope that these come to pass before I shuffle off
this mortal coil. My mind is transported back to the writings of
O'Neil, Dyson and Clarke. I want to shout out "Let's do it".:-)
Hopefully an international effort will be made to see that these
(practical) dreams come true
Ray
added:
The
way things are going, with so much resource devoted presently to
domestic and international police actions, and the greatest endeavours
in research being those of the biological sciences (either to heal or
kill), by the time Martian research really takes off, we'll be able to
tow in carbonaceous and hydrous asteroids and probably won't need to
terraform in any way we might now anticipate.
Something
for our children's children's children to be involved in.
Paul replied:
I prefer to take a more positive view than this. Although the
circumstances are different, the Vietnam War was in full swing when
Armstrong first stepped on the moon. One thing that appears to happen
is that military spending has technological spinoffs which directly
advantage space exploration.
Long term view:
In about a billion years, insolation is predicted to increase by about
10%.
The Earth will become uncomfortably hot. Mars may then come into her
own.
Jim Edwards wrote:
'The
new findings further pose the question of how Mars could have been
warm and wet to begin with. Working backward, one would assume that
there was once a sufficient amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
to trap enough solar energy to warm the planet, but there's simply not
enough carbon dioxide for this to clearly have been the case.
'"There
could be other explanations," Byrne says. "It could be that Mars was a
cold, wet planet; or it could be that the subterranean plumbing would
allow for liquid water to be sealed off underneath the surface."'
Or it
could be that Mars was once in an orbit closer to the Sun and thus warm
enough to have liquid water on the surface, or is that too heretical
an idea?
Paul Williams posted:
Perhaps millions of years ago, not a few thousand.
I believe that violent collisions or near collisions would have erased
the ancient surface features that are clearly shown in the more recent
photographs. We probably don't need this anyway - it's still
very early days in Mars exploration.
I do not know the theory which predicts certain levels of CO2 for Mars.
It is said to be in error - or perhaps the martian ferric oxides
also hide ferric carbonates which together lock up most of the
predicted oxygen and carbon?
Perhaps the carbon is hidden within the Martian crust?
The Earth has been shown to have microbes thriving deep within the
crust. A possible subterranean micobial population may still be
thriving on Mars?
"At low pH in the presence of oxygen, the chemical oxidation of ferrous
iron (Fe2+) is very slow. Under these conditions acidophilic
iron-oxidizing bacteria catalyze the oxidation of ferrous iron. The
best known representative is Thiobacillus
ferrooxidans. Iron-oxidizing bacteria use ferrous iron (Fe2+) as
their sole energy source."
http://mcb.berkeley.edu/labs/kustu/mcb112/nov13.htm
Perhaps the chemists on the list can say if I'm on the wrong track here?
Ray posted:
Jim,
there is more evidence, I believe, that Mars has had some major
impacts in its history and IMO, these are a more likely cause for
atmospheric loss and temperature reduction than a change in Solar
proximity.
Ian Musgrave
wrote:
At
09:21 19/02/03 +1000, Paul wrote:
> >
At 07:39 18/02/03 +1100, Jim wrote:
>
> >'The new findings further pose the question of how Mars could
have been warm
>
> >and wet to begin with. Working backward, one would assume that
there was
>
> >once a sufficient amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
to trap enough
>
> >solar energy to warm the planet, but there's simply not enough
carbon
>
> >dioxide for this to clearly have been the case.
[snip]
> >
Overpressure CO2 atmospheres were always a problem, instead of causing
a
>
> greenhouse, they form high altitude dry ice clouds and lead to
global
>
> cooling. It is more likely that Mars had much less CO2 and trace
methane as
>
> the greenhouse gas, producing a cool, wet Mars. (See my upcoming
paper to
>
> be published by the NSCE for more details, publication details
soon))
>
>I
looked up Overpressure: - "The amount of pressure above the desired
>pressure
setting necessary to relieve full flow capacity."
>Ummm...Sadly
I'm none the wiser...
>I
look forward to expunging some of my ignorance by reading your
>upcoming
paper.
Typical "CO2 only" greenhouses have early Earth and Mars with
atmospheric pressures 10 to 20 times higher than that of modern earth,
composed mostly of CO2. As mentioned above Mars with 10 atmospheres of
CO2 has CO2 ice clouds, which negates the greenhouse and plunges into
Fimbuwinter.
>
> Another (but disappointing) possibility is that the "water"
features on
> >
Mars are due to superfluid CO2 and Mars was never wet.
><snip>
>
>I
understand by 'superfluid' you mean the volatile/'explosive' nature of
>liquid/frozen
CO2 when heated as compared to heating water/ice?
I actually meant supercritical, and that the "water" features were
carved by "pyroclastic" flows of dust and CO2 resulting from "melting"
dry-ice.
See "White Mars" (a bit, ahhhh, strident)
<http://www.earthsci.unimelb.edu.au/mars/Enter.html>
Mars climate
http://www.earthsci.unimelb.edu.au/mars/Climate.html
CO2 avalanches
http://www.earthsci.unimelb.edu.au/mars/Outburst.html
A water based account of the gullies,
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/19feb_snow.htm?list110923
>I believe that the recent hydrogen findings
indicate a much shallower
>depth for H2O ice than this 2001 article
postulates:
>http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-water-science-01o.html
>
>I'm not arguing any point, I'm simply interested.
More stuff on water on Mars.
"Catastrophic Flooding on Mars" from "Science fronties online"
<http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf076/sf076a04.htm>
"Evidence found of lake, catastrophic flood on Mars"
<http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0206/23marslake/>
Jim Edwards wrote in reply to Ian Musgrave:
>At 07:39 18/02/03 +1100, Jim wrote:
<snip>>
>>Or it could be that Mars was once in an orbit closer to the Sun
and thus
>>warm enough to have liquid water on the surface, or is that too
heretical
>>an
>>idea?
>No, it is a dynamically unsupportable idea, as I mentioned to you a
few
>years back, one cannot arbitrarily move planets orbits around. If
Mars was
>closer to the sun, orbital resonances would have either resulted in
Mars
>being ejected from the solar system, or Earth and Mars colliding in
a
>terminal fashion.
>
>Cheers! Ian
>
So you say,
and no doubt you can back up this opinion with some impeccable sources, but I
have read the opinions of others, such as Ralph E. Juergens, who consider that
conventional theories of planetary dynamics are insufficient to
explain all the observed phenomena in the solar system.
I am in no
position to say which paradigm is the correct one, but I have observed that once
a particular paradigm is accepted by the scientific establishment and
is printed in all the text books, it is very difficult to overturn it even
with irrefutable evidence that it is wrong. There are too many reputations
at risk to allow that to happen.
I was once
asked, "As an impartial outside observer, what do you think of the human
race?" Well, as an IOO, I consider that the so-called 'electro-gravitic'
theory of interplanetary and interstellar dynamics has a lot going for it
and should be given more serious consideration, even if it does challenge the
hegemonic paradigm.
Ian Musgrave responded:
>So
you say, and no doubt you can back up this opinion with some impeccable
>sources, but I have read the opinions of others, such as Ralph E.
Juergens,
>who consider that conventional theories of planetary dynamics are
>insufficient to explain all the observed phenomena in the solar
system.
And? Even if their opinions
are correct (and opinions butter no parsnips), the proffered theories
make things WORSE. No matter what planetary dynamic paradigm you use,
if you move Mars inwards to warm it up, you will significantly disturb
the Earth/Moon balance, with ejection of Mars or collision of
Earth or Mars. Not only that there is no way to form/maintain the Aten
asteroids (asteroids that orbit between Earth and Mars) if you move
Mars in, let alone keep the Martian Trojans (How far you have to move
Mars in depends on how much CO2 atmosphere you assume Mars has, a CO2
only atmosphere at 1 earth atmosphere has to be very close in,
near Earth orbit, to maintain liquid water [add in trace methane
and such and the problem goes away]).
>I
am in no position to say which paradigm is the correct one, but I have
>observed that once a particular paradigm is accepted by the
scientific
>establishment and is printed in all the text books, it is very
difficult to
>overturn it even with irrefutable evidence that it is wrong.
There are too
>many reputations at risk to allow that to happen.
This is just simply
incorrect, replacement of textbook material is based solely on evidence
(and rates of Textbook edition production, unusually on a five year
time scale), not reputations.
>I
was once asked, "As an impartial outside observer, what do you think of
>the human race?" Well, as an IOO, I consider that the
so-called
>'electro-gravitic' theory of interplanetary and interstellar
dynamics has a
>lot going for it
Except any evidence.
>and
should be given more serious consideration, even if it
>does challenge the hegemonic paradigm.
Or would, if it had any
actual evidence.
Jim
Edwards posted:
The following article looks pretty convincing to me, but I am not an
expert:
http://www.electric-cosmos.org/sun.htm
Ian Musgrave responded:
Oh lord, not the Electric Sun again. Look, it's not convincing even to
non-experts, you just have to have a basic understanding of science
(and to have followed some of the topics in Science Matters, like the
solar neutrino threads) to realise that it's nonsense (why do most of
the references come from 1986, pre-SOHO, when solar research has been
forging ahead in leaps and bounds, the Sudbury results are dismissed
out of hand etc.).
Rather than go through this point by point, I will point you to Tim
Thompson's excellent article on this.
http://www.tim-thompson.com/electric-sun.html
