Strange plant-like formation captured by Curiosity rover on Mars
mars.nasa.gov
mars.nasa.gov
And so if you asked people from that time first consuming that media what they imagine the world (in terms of space) would look like 40 years later, us looking at somewhat higher resolution pictures from Mars would sound skeptical to the point of absurdity.
[1] - https://www.planetary.org/articles/every-picture-from-venus-...
As such a person, I do in fact concur. We really expected a moon colony fairly soon, and by now, a thriving colony on Mars.
We were wildly naïve about how hard it was. To have a self-sustaining colony on Mars, you would have to re-invent every single piece of technology we use on Earth to work in an environment of complete scarcity.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Sony_wat...
Why are people taking pictures of Chuck Norris’s bathroom?
It’s sweet how the simplest things bring babies joy, but we wouldn’t accomplish all that much if jingling keys fascinated us our whole lives.
(I then go home a brew a pot for me and my wife - who prefers to sleep in on Saturdays.)
In Malaysia, you would see people complaining if their Nasi Lemak costed more than RM 5, but the same person would happily pay RM 15 for coffee. It appeared that there was a norm at play, that Nasi Lemak belongs to Malaysian streets and should be cheap, while coffee is a western thing and it's normal to be expensive.
For some others, queuing up, the micro-interactions, and drinking while walking to the office (or even back to their home office) seems to be a morning ritual. I could see myself in this group if I did not prefer my own blend and brew.
But with coffee being grown in the North coffee itself isn’t seen as “Western”, and the older styles using robusta beans—like กาแฟโบราณ, โอเลี้ยง, etc.—are still sold for 20–30฿ from street carts, while the arabica espresso options with an ‘experience’ to it costs way more.
A V60 pourover is usually much more better ( and easier to clean and less chances of breaking too )
For me atleast V60 usually provides consistently better coffee then a chemex brewed one and is also less effort.
You can probably fund a moon colony just on tourism and entertainment.
Compare and contrast the Eagle Nebula from it's raw form enhanced with "false colors".
The Curiosity and Perseverance rovers have a fair amount of on-board storage (for an interplanetary probe). So they can spool a lot of data and then send a batch to the orbiters and then go about their next tasks. The orbiters also have a lot of storage (for interplanetary probes) and can themselves spool a lot of data until they're in a transmit window to Earth.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Areology/comments/t18c2r/desert_flo...
Of course if someone thinks that doesn't look like a plant but crystal or an animal, they are fre to describe it as "crystal-like" or "animal-like".
Its alright bo be impressed with its looks I guess, noone is going to make a salad of it, so it is not dangerous to think that it looks like a plant.
Not a meteorologist, but from all I understand it means lens-shaped, and to me that immediately gives a strong clue as to how they form since lenses have focal points and can, to some degree, have shapes expressed as formulae about some origin. Which to me is suggestive of the relation to the mountains around which they form.
1: https://study.com/academy/lesson/sea-sponge-lesson-for-kids....
Interesting to learn about other formations from @hownottowrite's comment.
https://www.sciencealert.com/lightning-strikes-can-create-in...
I think those are called Fulgurites:
If it's is made of fused quartz, it's likely to be a fulgurite.
If it's made of calcium carbonate, it's likely to be a coral.
If it's made of something else, that's even more exciting!
https://www.space.com/mars-lightning-weak-thin-atmosphere.ht...
Mars isn't quite the Moon, where you could drop a marble and expect to find it in exactly the same condition 10,000 years later, but it's not quite Earth either.
There's no organisms that will cover and break down anything you throw at them within weeks, obviously there's no rain that could cause erosion, wind speeds are about the same you'd see on earth, but atmospheric pressure is only about 1/150th.
People will always lose their minds over simple mineral intrusions because the only rocks they’ve ever seen are just round.
Maybe describing it as "plant-like" was not really called for, can we still learn something interesting from this?
I have no idea. But can imagine that another proof of water, salt even, is really nice.
* - not compared to Earth, but more than you would think from looking at the surface - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_on_Mars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_habit#/media/File:Bari...
After a long time of sanding down.
https://cosmiclog.com/2022/02/25/martian-flower-blooms-in-a-...
Photosynthetic bacteria? That's a stretch but I could imagine it happening.
Plants? Not just the prokaryotic to eukaryote transition but differentiated multicellular organisms? No, it would take an incredible amount of evidence to convince me that that happened on Mars and this does no in any way count.
It looks like coral.
And GP's comment is interesting. Consider that Earth, even after nuclear war, comet strike, caldera explosion, destroyed habitats, etc is still infinitely more habitable than Mars.
The main threat to earth is uninhabitable atmosphere, so if we figured out how to reverse those changes, then perhaps we could reverse Venus' atmosphere. If that were possible, then we might actually have a second livable planet in our solar system.
The commenter joined the conversation about that discovery to say nothing other than that they don't find the topic interesing.
There is no getting around the fundamental ignorance and offensiveness of that.
My comment IS exactly about conversation not about Mars.
It's about the curious but not at all uncommon phenomenon of joining a conversation for no other purpose but to tell everyone in it that you are not interested in it.
My point is to point out that that is what they are doing when they do that, not merely adding their own perfectly valid opinion on a topic the same as anyone else's. It's uniquely invalid and offensive.
It's walking down a hall, hearing a conversation behind one of the doors, stopping, entering the room, and announcing to everyone in that room "It's stupid to discuss this topic".
Obviously, the ignoramus who does this doesn't realize that this is what they are doing. Obviously they think they are delivering a valuable observation and conclusion, or at least expressing their opinion which they are entitled to have and even to express.
The problem is the context. They were not already in a conversation where something came up and their opinion was relevant. They were not specifically asked for their opinion like with a poll or an article that poses the question. They went out of their way to join a conversation in the first place for no other purpose than to say it's a pointless conversation.
I am distilling their action to it's essense to expose just what they are actually doing, and lay bare the lack of any valid motivation for an action like that.
You are supposed to see this, and understandably try to find a hole in it to save face, but then eventually when there turns out to be no way to avoid the essential facts after unpacking, realize that's what you're doing and maybe do it less.
Or failing that (honestly, more likely, but at least they no longer have the excuse of ignorance), at least maybe some bystanders will be wiser to the phenomenon in the future an be better able to recognize a tool for what they are on first sight and not grant them the time of day by bothering to get into any arguments with them. IE, recognize that peculiar form of mental Turet's and thereby feel no attack from it, and feel no need to defend against it.
If we can’t get life right here, our technical ability won’t mean much on another planet once human nature takes over.
While that old saw has a bit of truth, the nice thing about mars is that there is no ecology to disturb
You don’t know that Mars is dead, and we are also looking for previous signs of life.
I am excited about us learning about other planets, their mineral composition, what technological advancements we must make to create habitable environments for us, what robotic advancements we must made to study and build remotely. What protocol enhancements must be made to streamline high latency communications.
And then later stage stuff, once functioning, self sustaining civilisation is established, how is it governed? What are the economics of trading in high latency scenarios? What’s next after Mars?
There’s so many interesting things to discover and areas to be excited about.
I think of the words at the end of Battlestar Galactica, "so much life". As far as we know, there are entire galaxies where the most exciting and interesting thing you could hope to find is some crystals. Then I look around our planet and can hardly see a square inch that isn't covered in life.
I may never travel to other planets, and will certainly never go to another galaxy, but at least I'm here, in the most interesting part of the universe.
A few millimetres, according to this Twitter post: https://mobile.twitter.com/abbyfrae/status/14973756989855211...
(Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis reference fyi)