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Possible 2014 comet impact to Mars could make it habitable.
Speculation here that such an impact could make Mars habitable:
Rush to Mars: Comet impact could make Red Planet inhabitable. Published time: February 28, 2013 16:32 http://rt.com/news/mars-comet-tito-flyby-601/ Bob Clark |
#2
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Possible 2014 comet impact to Mars could make it habitable.
Cross-posts elided...
On 3/5/2013 11:31 AM, Robert Clark wrote: Speculation here that such an impact could make Mars habitable: Title says otherwise? Rush to Mars: Comet impact could make Red Planet inhabitable. Published time: February 28, 2013 16:32 http://rt.com/news/mars-comet-tito-flyby-601/ I think we should hope for a miss. Geologic time scales for climate change on Mars to complete a 'terraform' would not be a boon for human exploration. Dave |
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Possible 2014 comet impact to Mars could make it habitable.
On Mar 5, 11:45*am, David Spain wrote:
Cross-posts elided... On 3/5/2013 11:31 AM, Robert Clark wrote: Speculation here that such an impact could make Mars habitable: Title says otherwise? Rush to Mars: Comet impact could make Red Planet inhabitable. Published time: February 28, 2013 16:32 http://rt.com/news/mars-comet-tito-flyby-601/ I think we should hope for a miss. Geologic time scales for climate change on Mars to complete a 'terraform' would not be a boon for human exploration. Habitable and inhabitable are used interchangeably, like flammable and inflammable. The opposite term is uninhabitable. Bob Clark |
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Possible 2014 comet impact to Mars could make it habitable.
On 3/5/2013 2:12 PM, Robert Clark wrote:
Habitable and inhabitable are used interchangeably, like flammable and inflammable. The opposite term is uninhabitable. Bob Clark Ah, right you are... |
#5
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Possible 2014 comet impact to Mars could make it habitable.
"David Spain" wrote in message
... On 3/5/2013 2:12 PM, Robert Clark wrote: Habitable and inhabitable are used interchangeably, like flammable and inflammable. The opposite term is uninhabitable. Bob Clark Ah, right you are... Well technically inflammable means VERY flammable. It's an intensifier. I suppose that means Anchorage AK is habitable, but Honolulu is inhabitable :-) -- Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/ CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net |
#6
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Possible 2014 comet impact to Mars could make it habitable.
It's a nice thought but Mars is just too small for a comet impact to do much good. Think about it: over the last 4 billion years, Mars has been repeatedly hit by comets, just like Earth and while they were probably able to deliver enough water and atmospheric gasses to keep that water liquid for an extended period - long enough to form various minerals which can ONLY form in the presence of hot, liquid water!
However, there are two things Mars doesn't have that the Earth does which allowed Earth to keep most of it's water and atmosphe it's magnetic field and it's size. To address the latter first, you can and I did, do some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations to show that Mars is simply not large enough to hold onto gaseous nitrogen and nitrogen is critical to the formation of life as it's absolutely necessary for any kind of long-chain reproductive molecule, like RNA/DNA and it's also necessary to create the substrate molecules that form the workhorse protein molecules that get things done in the cell. The first issue formed as a result of Hadean-Earth hitting a Mars-sized object which blew off a good-chunk of the Earth's crust into space, formed the moon, started the earth spinning, and left the earth big enough to hold onto it's nitrogen gas. Moreover, because space is extremely insulating, all that kinetic energy was stored in the core and has been oozing out onto the crust as lava flows and volcanoes ever since - well, it had radioactive decay to help it out, but Mercury is nothing BUT a core of radioactive elements and it's no longer liquid rock. Further, Venus has a lot of the same things going for it as the earth with the exception that Venus no longer spins to any meaningful amount. As a result, it's lost it's magnetic field and the gas it has is slowly losing it's atmosphere to solar radiation. If this had been going on for the last 4 billion years, Venus would be a barren rock today. It's not. Ergo, at one point in the not too distant past - like the last couple-few million years, it was almost earth's twin with a moon, an atmosphere, liquid, but hot, water, and likely life of some sort. I would speculate, however, that the moon rotated in a retrograde orbit which deteriorated, was pulled apart by Venus' gravity and impacted all over Venus, destroying it's life, it's atmosphere, and it's magnetic field as the impacts of millions of asteroids slowed the planet down like pellets fired at a revolving wax drum. All those weird pancake-like structures they've found on Venus are simply meteor-impacts filled with magma. |
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Possible 2014 comet impact to Mars could make it habitable.
On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 8:31:02 AM UTC-8, Robert Clark wrote:
Speculation here that such an impact could make Mars habitable: Rush to Mars: Comet impact could make Red Planet inhabitable. Published time: February 28, 2013 16:32 http://rt.com/news/mars-comet-tito-flyby-601/ Bob Clark Well, it might make it less hostile whether to even a meaningful degree is debatable. If Mars had been bigger perhaps a bit bigger than Earth and had it had a moon similar to Earth's moon, I suppose it might have managed a sort of 'habitable' environment. This of course is the habitable zone discussion and Mars is just too small. Perhaps 4 billion years with a still very active magnetic field Mars might have been more interesting, if this meant a three bar atmosphere as an insulating blanket. As a wildly eye guess for it would really take. As it stands, Mars means tunnels or perhaps domes with perhaps a Star Wars defence/defense system for space rocks for a permanent colony. making fire or just friction..............Trig |
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Possible 2014 comet impact to Mars could make it habitable.
On Mar 5, 6:31*pm, Nun Giver wrote:
On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 8:31:02 AM UTC-8, Robert Clark wrote: Speculation here that such an impact could make Mars habitable: Rush to Mars: Comet impact could make Red Planet inhabitable. Published time: February 28, 2013 16:32 http://rt.com/news/mars-comet-tito-flyby-601/ * Bob Clark Well, it might make it less hostile whether to even a meaningful degree is debatable. If Mars had been bigger perhaps a bit bigger than Earth and had it had a moon similar to Earth's moon, I suppose it might have managed a sort of 'habitable' environment. This of course is the habitable zone discussion and Mars is just too small. Perhaps 4 billion years with a still very active magnetic field Mars might have been more interesting, if this meant a three bar atmosphere as an insulating blanket. As a wildly eye guess for it would really take. As it stands, Mars means tunnels or perhaps domes with perhaps a Star Wars defence/defense system for space rocks for a permanent colony. making fire or just friction..............Trig http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1985/1985_Stothers.pdf It appears we may be entering a littered area of space...... every 64 million years life on earth gets largely wiped out |
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Possible 2014 comet impact to Mars could make it habitable.
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Possible 2014 comet impact to Mars could make it habitable.
Greg (Strider) Moore used his keyboard to write :
"David Spain" wrote in message ... On 3/5/2013 2:12 PM, Robert Clark wrote: Habitable and inhabitable are used interchangeably, like flammable and inflammable. The opposite term is uninhabitable. Bob Clark Ah, right you are... Well technically inflammable means VERY flammable. It's an intensifier. I thought flammable was a back-formation, and that imflammable was the older word. Have those naughty posters over in AUE been lying to me again? I suppose that means Anchorage AK is habitable, but Honolulu is inhabitable :-) Depends on how claustophobic you are, I suppose. /dps -- I have always been glad we weren't killed that night. I do not know any particular reason, but I have always been glad. _Roughing It_, Mark Twain |
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