Mysterious Magnetic Pulses Discovered On Mars (nationalgeographic.com) 54
Initial results from NASA's InSight lander suggest that Mars' magnetic field wobbles in inexplicable ways at night, hinting that the red planet may host a global reservoir of liquid water deep below the surface. National Geographic reports: In addition to the odd magnetic pulsations, the lander's data show that the Martian crust is far more powerfully magnetic than scientists expected. What's more, the lander has picked up on a very peculiar electrically conductive layer, about 2.5 miles thick, deep beneath the planet's surface. It's far too early to say with any certainty, but there is a chance that this layer could represent a global reservoir of liquid water.
On Earth, groundwater is a hidden sea locked up in sand, soil, and rocks. If something similar is found on Mars, then "we shouldn't be surprised," says Jani Radebaugh, a planetary scientist at Brigham Young University who was not involved with the work. But if these results bear out, a liquid region at this scale on modern Mars has enormous implications for the potential for life, past or present. So far, none of these data have been through peer review, and details about the initial findings and interpretations will undoubtedly be tweaked over time. Still, the revelations provide a stunning showcase for InSight, a robot that has the potential to revolutionize our comprehension of Mars and other rocky worlds across the galaxy.
On Earth, groundwater is a hidden sea locked up in sand, soil, and rocks. If something similar is found on Mars, then "we shouldn't be surprised," says Jani Radebaugh, a planetary scientist at Brigham Young University who was not involved with the work. But if these results bear out, a liquid region at this scale on modern Mars has enormous implications for the potential for life, past or present. So far, none of these data have been through peer review, and details about the initial findings and interpretations will undoubtedly be tweaked over time. Still, the revelations provide a stunning showcase for InSight, a robot that has the potential to revolutionize our comprehension of Mars and other rocky worlds across the galaxy.
Defekt! (Score:1, Interesting)
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This is interference from the device's solar cells.
It's worse than that, Jim.
The magnetic pulses are coming from The Obelisk buried just below surface.
Soon, there will long, loud series of pulsations. Then all the landers, rovers and other critters will pick up dead Martian bones, and start bashing each other on head.
Oh, and if you have a Defekt, just use some Fehlerbehebungsmaßnahmen.
As long as there will be a broom alien, it's OK. (Score:1)
https://www.giantbomb.com/broo... [giantbomb.com]
Bonus points for the alien pyramid offering Total-Recall-style head-explodey venting facilities.
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Ya, I'm sure the scientists who designed and built the device would have never thought of that. Maybe they should give you their PhDs since you clearly know more than they.
This stupid argument again. (Score:4, Insightful)
You clearly never actually worked on a big hard dick^Wproject.
It is always the freakin obvious in hindsight problems that you miss. Which is why it's wise, to always ask people outside of the project, and even field, to sanity-check what you do.
But that is not done often enough...
It's also why artists flip and rotate their drawings, to gain a new perspective.
And why it's good, and not wasted time, to leave your project for a while. When you come back, you will have an entirely new view on it, and both see and solve things that before were invisible and seemed imposible.
So yeah, it might very well be a facepalm-worthy obvious error.
Case in point: Mixing up metric and imperial units on a space probe, resulting in it crashing right into the surface.
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Case in point: Mixing up metric and imperial units on a space probe, resulting in it crashing right into the surface.
Yeah, I wonder which stupid country is still using Imperial units... anyone?
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No one still uses Imperial units, as far as I know. The US uses American units, which aren't the same.
Using US units for space flight, or anything scientific, is a bit daffy, but they're just better for household use.
* Measures based on powers of 2 instead of powers of 10 are obviously better for liquids you're pouring by hand.
* Fahrenheit has the right-sized units, Centigrade doesn't.
* A foot is the right size for measuring indoor lengths (the decimeter wouldn't be too bad, but when's the last time you he
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* Measures based on powers of 2 instead of powers of 10 are obviously better for liquids you're pouring by hand.
Duh, of course. Everyone has 2 hands don't they.
But then we also have 10 fingers...hmm...
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If you have a quart, and two of the same-shaped containers, you can trivially have 2 pints. Ditto a pint and two cups. Dividing liquids in two with enough accuracy for e.g. cooking is really easy.
Cooking (Score:2)
If you have a quart, and two of the same-shaped containers, you can trivially have 2 pints. Ditto a pint and two cups.
Yup back in the 18th century.
Or nowadays you could have a cylinder with marks on it to pour any arbitrary amount of liquid.
If you need 1dL or 2dL of anything you could also use the cylinder
(Or use a kitchen scale in a pinch).
Dividing liquids in two with enough accuracy for e.g. cooking is really easy.
It's cooking, not labwork in organic chemistry.
Given the precision needed, 1dL being roughly one third of a 33cL can, or 2dL of milk being "a bit less than half the 0.5L box" is precise enough.
You're just used to do all your computation in term of quart/pints/galons/cups wheras I'm just
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Needing a graduated cylinder or a kitchen scale is clearly not as convenient as a system where you can just improvise and get it right. Your system is objectively worse, which is why the US doesn't change.
Improvising (Score:2)
Needing a graduated cylinder or a kitchen scale is clearly
...more or less the same as needing to have a bunch of calibrated measuring cups as you can see in the kitchen section of most US shops.
Both (the metric-style measuring jug and the US-style calibrates measuring cups) would be very inconvenient, but they are seldom used in practice.
a system where you can just improvise and get it right.
In practice, as long as the measures in your recipes and the containers you have around use the same system, it's always possible to eyeball roughly in a manner that is sufficient for most kitchen needs.
You can pour half a cup of
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With only 1 regular shaped container I could eyeball 1/2 or 1/3 of 1/4 etc with the requited accuracy for cooking. Call them squirrels, jabberwockys or munchkins if you like, it doesn't change the accuracy
If you are claiming your system is only better when you don't really care about accuracy...that's just retarded.
What about all the times you do care? Do you ask a sensible person to help you?
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Well, that is 11.8 inches, or very close to one foot. So we're essentially back to American units.
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i think that was the point the Grandparent OP was making.
Another advantage of defining the base unit of distance from the speed of light, is that it effectively eliminates the speed of light constant from all scientific equations, since now the speed of light would be 1 billion 'distance units' per second, so just expressable as 10^9. You can go further by defining other things as clean powers of 10 of planck constants too, and clean up not just relativity equations, but other constants. It's is fun trying
Computers. (Score:2)
I agree with your example using powers of ten of planck constants.
On the other hand, most of the computations nowadays are performed on devices that uses powers of 2...
Finding power of 2 multiples of planck constant would eventual get rid of most floating numbers, actually... :-P
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Yes, the foot is almost a great unit of measure. Nudge it a bit.
Also, nudge the parsec so that it's 10^8 light seconds exactly, while we're at it. The parsec is as "historical baggage" as a hundredweight that weight 120 pounds - yes there was a good reason, no it's no longer good. Now that we're doing cosmology with more that 1 significant digit, it's time to fix that.
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Imperial (and most US units are imperial) are not based on convenience of use but what the king decreted would be the unit. Oh, that was so easy. So usually it changed every time a new king came to power. However the britts became smart enough to stop this and keep the old measures at some point in time.
Convenience of use is learned during getting raises. The unit system does not matter at all.
* A foot is the right size for measuring indoor lengths (the decimeter wouldn't be too bad, but when's the last tim
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One nice point of traditional units is that they use base-12, which dates from pre-decimal days, and base-12 has some nicer properties than base-10. If we all switched to base-12 arithmetic then you get the advantages of both systems: metric with the ease of divisibility of imperial. But since that isn't happening it makes sense that we align our measurement system with how arithmetic works.
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Difficult to convert everything to base 12, and base 12 is not easy to calculate in your mind anyway. Unless you change the digit/number system to base 12, too.
Aka: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 X Y - obviously we woukd invent new glyphs for "10" and "11".
No idea were that myth that base 12 js simpler does come from. You have it most simple with the system you were born with. I kearned with 4 that 4/3 is 1 and 1/3rd or 1.333333 (the later I figured my own) and that fact does not chanfe if you switch to base 12.
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No idea were that myth that base 12 js simpler does come from.
It was used by traders to do business way back in the past, when they were exchanging products directly (barter). A dozen” is the smallest number that cleanly divides by 1, 2, 3 and 4 (and 6 too but people were preoccupied by the first four numbers). As far as time is concerned, 60 was chosen because it is the smallest number that cleanly divides by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. For hours, 5 was skipped but 6 was kept, so we ended up with 24 hours a day.
But this is not about "counting in base 12" as it's incor
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Base 12 is definitely better for in-your-head arithmetic, give a choice of what you might grow up with. This is because it's trivial to divide a number in your head when the number divides the base! Have you really never thought about this before?
With base 10, we're stuck with 2 and 5 for easy division (and how often do you need to divide something 5 ways?). With base 12, you get 2, 3, 4, and 6. Heck, even division with remainders is easier, e.g. 4/3 = 1.4. Bit easier than 1.33333333.
Of course, most p
Using fingers (Score:2)
Of course, most people are functionally innumerate, so "doing math in your head" doesn't apply,
...but you can get around by using fingers to count.
(Hint: use your thumb to count phallanxes on the other 4 fingers)
That's yet another reason why base 12 is among the "easy" one:
its among the countless bases that can be done by counting body parts.
As is the base 10 (two hands)
the roman mixed base 5/10
the celtic base 20 (add feets in the mix) (still partially surviving in the modern french used specifically in France).
etc.
(Cue-in people mentionned the Oksapmin base 27 body-part counting [researchgate.net] :-P )
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Well, that certainly puts Sumerian base 60 in a whole new light! Maybe those "ancient aliens" guys are on to something after all.
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Imperial (and most US units are imperial) are not based on convenience of use but what the king decreted would be the unit. Oh, that was so easy.
Like most things a king decrees, it's not just on a whim. But like I said, we in the US trashed the Imperial system like we did monarchs and it's not relevant to this conversation.
US units are kept around because they're better. Not better for science, but that never affects 99.9% of people. Better for household use.
Convenience of use is learned during getting raises. The unit system does not matter at all.
What on earth are you on about?
Hint: no one uses cups, spoons etc. we use a simple instrument, called a weight
If you're dragging out a scale in your kitchen to cook, you're seriously doing it wrong. Especially for liquids - how would you even? It's a scoop of this and
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US units are kept around because they're better.{...} Better for household use.
They seem better to you because you grew up used to them.
And because the rest of everything you'll encounter in your country (including recipes books) are organised around those.
That's it.
Convenience of use is learned during getting raises. The unit system does not matter at all.
What on earth are you on about?
Given the theme of the discussion, he's probably also European.
Given the distribution of population, culture and language in Europe, English isn't probably his first language.
"getting raises" is probably quickly translating "growing up" from his mother-tongue into english and doing it a bit too much word-by-word.
(Well, I'm
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Okay, when you need 1/8th of a cup of milk, are you actually going to pour one cup of milk and subsequently divide it in two be pouring three time
Well, if I need an oz of milk, I have a scoop for that. If in need 4 oz, I just pour half a cup. Yes, yes, I also have a "measuring cup" that's graduated, but I only really need it when I end up with some recipe with metric units.
Anyway, this is the system we've freely chosen, having no overlords to force their favorite system on us.
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> (Hint: no one uses cups, spoons etc. we use a simple instrument, called a weight)
How to spot the person who has never followed a recipe to make anything in a kitchen.
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Why does TFA not understand basic astronomy? (Score:3, Insightful)
>>a robot that has the potential to revolutionize our comprehension of Mars and other rocky worlds across the galaxy.
I mean how the holy fuck are we going to jump from sending a robot to a single planet to the entire damned galaxy?
Sure, the nice thing is to just assume that they meant Solar System, when they said Galaxy... I meant one is about 100 BILLIONS times as big as the other one...
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At the moment we have a reasonable understanding of our earth, would we achieve the same for Mars then we double our knowledge.
Re:Why does TFA not understand basic astronomy? (Score:4, Interesting)
There are Mars-like worlds across the galaxy. Understanding Mars will in fact give us understanding of worlds across the galaxy. They're all made of basically the same stuff, there's no reason to expect them to be radically different just because they're in a different solar system.
Re:Why does TFA not understand basic astronomy? (Score:4, Interesting)
Excuse me? Even the planets and moons in OUR solar system are pretty radically different from each other in many ways. We can only guess what planets might be like elsewhere.
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Re: Why does TFA not understand basic astronomy? (Score:2)
They said nothing about going to other such planets in the galaxy. Only that our knowledge of such would change, which it undoubtedly would.
Final line (Score:2)
PWEW. I was sure they were going to overreach with wishful thinking and say "universe" there.
That being said: more power to them. No, really --- give them batteries, money, whatever they want. Science and NASA is one of the best things we (US) do.
not saying its aliens but... (Score:3)
I'd check to see if the magnetic field modulations can be interpreted/decoded as a message. Maybe it will decode to the galactic coordinates of the Oumuamuan home world.
Why not both? (Score:2)
You can hate Trump, and support NASA, at the same time, you know?
In fact, those views are practically made for each other.
Drill, drill, drill... (Score:2)
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There might be oil, if it ever had life like Earth's. But we only know it had water, and it takes more than that to have life.
Sure, Earth's life could have come from Mars. Or maybe it never had any. We don't know yet.
That's a great reason to drill, of course. It will be exciting when we manage to land some much larger robots.
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There's methane there and CO2, but oil is much less likely, as oil is made from broken down plant matter. To make the oil out of small molecules such as methane and CO2 needs a lot of energy.
What groundwater isn't. (Score:1)
"On Earth, groundwater is a hidden sea locked up in sand, soil, and rocks."
No. It's not.
Isn't it obvious? (Score:2)
This article is to science what flour is to pizza. (Score:1)
Moons (Score:2)
I wonder if the moons of Mars are large enough to produce a tidal affect? If so that might be useful for determining it is indeed a fluid. There would be a cyclical affect based on the moons, in addition to a daily cycle.
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Well, yes there are tidal forces caused by Phobos [seis-insight.eu].
But are they strong enough ? Maybe.
Characterizing the tidal forces exerted by Phobos opens up the possibility of probing the depths of Mars, and more particularly its core. Depending whether the core is liquid or solid, it will not be deformed in the same way.
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The simple answer is: no they are not. They are captured small asteroids.
The correct/complex answer is: of course they have, but it is nearly immeasurable and irrelevant for anything.
A better clickbait headline (Score:2)
Mysterious magnetic pulses detected on planet populated entirely by robots.