Mars

Riffing off Elon Musk’s goal of sending humans to Mars by 2024, and NASA’s plans to send astronauts there after they visit the Moon again, Rice University evolutionary biologist Scott Solomon envisions “mutations cascading through the gene pool”: After about two generations, he thinks their bones will strengthen, they’ll need glasses for nearsightedness, their immune systems will be null, pregnancy and childbirth will be significantly more perilous, and the exposure to radiation—more than 5,000 times the amount we’re exposed to on Earth during a normal lifetime, Solomon says—could lead to an influx of cancer.Natalie Coleman, “Evolutionary Biologist: Mars Colonists Will Mutate Really Fast” at Futurism As a result, he thinks Martians should stop having kids with Earthlings. Hey, what do Read More ›

We are told that Earth and Mars are like two siblings who have grown apart: “There was a time when their resemblance was uncanny: Both were warm, wet and shrouded in thick atmospheres. But 3 or 4 billion years ago, these two worlds took different paths”: Long ago, Mars stopped changing, while Earth continued to evolve. Earth developed a kind of geological “conveyer belt” that Mars never had: tectonic plates. When they converge, they can push the crust into the planet. When they move apart, they enable new crust to emerge. This churning of material brings more than just rock to the surface. Some of life’s most vital ingredients are so-called volatiles, which include water, carbon dioxide and methane. Because Read More ›

Physicist S. Fred Singer offers some suggestions pertaining to the hunt for life on Mars: 1. Super-rotation of the core Seismic data, taken over a period of several years (Zhang, et al., Science 2005), suggest that the (innermost, solid iron) core is rotating slightly faster than the rest of the Earth, at 0.3-0.5 degrees/yr. We don’t know if this super-rotation is constant or varies over time. The analysts did not suggest a cause, hence relatively little attention has been devoted to the phenomenon. Most scientists I talked to had never heard of it. 2. Possible explanation of super-rotation If I invert the question and ask, “Why is the Earth rotating slower than its core?,” then the answer becomes clear to Read More ›

Hugh Ross thinks so. From Tyler O’Neil at PJ Media: On Wednesday, media outlets breathlessly reported that scientists have discovered a “lake of liquid water” on Mars. Fox News called it a “game changer” in the search for alien life, and Yahoo News reported something similar. The New York Times headline spelled out the implications: “Raising the Potential for Alien Life.” He quotes Hugh Ross, Ph.D. astronomer Hugh Ross told PJ Media that these reports twisted the truth. In reality, the scientists found what could be a lake, but Ross noted that it certainly does not contain life. The peer-reviewed study published in the journal Science reported on findings from 22 planetary astronomers in Italy working on data from the Read More ›

Does that mean anything? The reason we ask is, From Lisa Grossman at Science News: A Mars orbiter has detected a wide lake of liquid water hidden below the planet’s southern ice sheets. There have been much-debated hints of tiny, ephemeral amounts of water on Mars before. But if confirmed, this lake marks the first discovery of a long-lasting cache of the liquid. “This is potentially a really big deal,” says planetary scientist Briony Horgan of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. “It’s another type of habitat in which life could be living on Mars today.”More. and From JPL/NASA: New comprehensive mapping of the radiation pummeling Jupiter’s icy moon Europa reveals where scientists should look — and how deep they’ll Read More ›