On the one hand it’s just rocks
On the other hand it’s rocks... on other worlds!
It’s kinda oddly satisfying to learn that other worlds are made of the same stuff
The differences are intellectually fascinating but the similarities are emotionally satisfying
Conversation
Mercury is actually the hardest place to get to... needs high velocities and hard braking (all rocket like the moon since there’s no atmosphere for parachutes)
Venus is the most toxic place to operate. Kinda amazing how far the Soviets got with Venera missions.
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I’d also like permanent underwater settlements on earth for the hell of it.
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I doubt Mars is worth settling as is, but I for one am all for extreme terraforming experiments all the way to nukes and crashing asteroids. I’m betting 99% there won’t be even bacterial life for Perseverance to find, so it’s basically a spare blank planet for us to reformat.
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Both Viking landers, 4000 miles apart, found evidence for metabolism in Martian soils. Although certain inorganic reactions could not be ruled out, they are highly unlikely.
Since then NASA has refused to fly an updated experiment to confirm the results.
phys.org/news/2016-10-y
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I’d expect primordial soup type autocatalytic reactions at best... I’d be genuinely surprised if unicellular level complexity is found.
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1/ The experiment injected radioactive C14 into the soil sample along with some water. It then identified radioactive CO2 gas being emitted back over next 48 hours. Hard to call that autocatalytic.
In addition there was a sterilization control, that was also highly suggestive.
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2/ Repeating the same experiment, but heating the sample to 160C resulted in no emissions detected.
A third sample was heated to 50C which greatly reduced, but not eliminated, the emissions. This is important because a temp of 50C has no effect on almost all oxidizing chemicals.
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Hmm I imagine perseverance experiments will go for much more conclusive tests
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Perseverance may find evidence for life based on observation, but it will not test for it.
After 1976, NASA (for unstated political reasons) has explicitly refused to fund any kind of “life detection testing” experiments on Mars missions & has rejected multiple such proposals.
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