Spacecraft lands on Mars

Discussion in 'General Chat' started by webcosmo, May 25, 2008.

  1. #1
    NASA's Phoenix Mars spacecraft appears to have made a safe landing on Mars.

    Why this is unique? This is the first time a spacecraft has landed on ice.

    Mission controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory here received a radio signal from the Phoenix on the ground in the icy plains north of Mars' Arctic circle.

    Because the signal was relayed via the Mars Odyssey orbiter, the controllers would have to wait another couple of hours, until Odyssey's next pass over the landing site, for additional word of the Phoenix's condition, including whether it had successfully unfolded its solar panels and possibly the first photographs.

    If all is operating properly, the next few days will be spent checking out the instruments aboard the lander. Then, it will begin the first upclose investigation of Mars' north polar regions. That area became a prime area of interest for planetary scientists after NASA's orbiting Odyssey spacecraft discovered in 2002 vast quantities of water ice lying a few inches beneath the surface in Mars' polar regions.

    All of Mars' surface is currently far too cold for life to exist, but in the past, Mars' axis may have periodically tipped over so that its north pole pointed at the sun during summer. That conceivably could have warmed the ice into liquid water.

    With liquid water comes the possibility of life.
     
    webcosmo, May 25, 2008 IP
  2. twistedspikes

    twistedspikes Notable Member

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    #2
    Yay, they landed on ice. :rolleyes: Can I live there yet? I'm not that interested until I can...
     
    twistedspikes, May 25, 2008 IP
  3. selfhelpebooks

    selfhelpebooks Peon

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    #3
    That is good news.
    I know they are working on a 2 year or so mission to send people to Mars.
    This is in the hopes that they can survive the travel to and from, and maybe terraform the planet for life one day in case ours gets destroyed.
     
    selfhelpebooks, May 25, 2008 IP
  4. decepti0n

    decepti0n Peon

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    #4
    Eh, they didn't so much as land on ice. They still landed on rock, but underground they're hoping to find ice and/or liquid water. But it is closer to the north pole than the other two rovers currently. It's also the first mission in 30? years to use a controlled descent,which is also important if they're planning to relaunch from the surface in future missions.
     
    decepti0n, May 25, 2008 IP
  5. digitalduke

    digitalduke Notable Member

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    #5
    There were life in Mars. Then like Earth, the over populations, Wars, Pollutions destroyed Mars atmosphere. Now there could be some survivors but they always tend to hide from human interference cuz the war might start again.

    ;)
     
    digitalduke, May 25, 2008 IP
  6. Freewebspace

    Freewebspace Notable Member

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    #6


    any proof for this?

    only micro organisms are living there....
     
    Freewebspace, May 25, 2008 IP
  7. digitalduke

    digitalduke Notable Member

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    #7
    Life circles around. Nature always wins. Micro organisms are one of the survivors.

    Life deceased in Mars millions of years ago. So its hard to find proof of these things. Thats what going to happen to earth in that time.
     
    digitalduke, May 25, 2008 IP
  8. bluefox21

    bluefox21 Well-Known Member

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    #8
    I dont' understand how people talks about life putting as facts things based on human theories.
    Water doesn't mean life. There might be life without water, just because we need water to live, doesn't mean that everything in the universe needs water to live.
    There might be life in the sun, and they may think there is no life in the earth because it's too cold and there isn't big sources of lava at hand to drink, just to put an example.
    That's why humans fail and visitors come from other planets, the might just know that not everything it's just like they know and nothing else.
    That's why human think about the big bang or god, because they think everything started somewhere at some time, and no one thinks that probabily the universe has just being there, always, since time doesn't really exist so we can't stipulate how much time has been since the universe started.
    Probabily everything has been there always, and the people from other planets see us just as we used to see the guy who said that the earth was a globe and not plain.
    In a thousand years maybe the humans will look back and say "hey, 1000 years ago, people was so dumb that thought that there wasn't other civilizations besides us, and life needed water and oxygen. Can you belive how dumb the were back then!??"
    Everything is posibble....
     
    bluefox21, May 26, 2008 IP
  9. eddiecon

    eddiecon Well-Known Member

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    #9
    i want to see the pictures, that's what i'm waiting for at this point.
     
    eddiecon, May 26, 2008 IP
  10. sudden.emptiness

    sudden.emptiness Banned

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    #10
    i beginning to fear does this mean the end of earth is near?
     
    sudden.emptiness, May 26, 2008 IP
  11. digitalduke

    digitalduke Notable Member

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    #11
    People always look for what they believe or what made them to believe.
    Life outside the Planet is not important. For God Shake, there are war going on here. Poverty,Crimes, Killings etc..etc... Why not Government spend their resources on these instead of something we never know what to expect.

    But fact is, this is all a part of system. The System is where we put our life to it and move accordingly.
     
    digitalduke, May 26, 2008 IP
  12. TheVccMatey

    TheVccMatey Peon

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    #12
    Actually I'm not at all surprised at the fact that there is life outside Earth. Surprised that they still stick on to the fact that it can happen only on Earth
     
    TheVccMatey, May 26, 2008 IP
  13. bangalore

    bangalore Peon

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    #13
    I think that last several years, mankind is preparing for the fact that we are not alone in universe.
     
    bangalore, May 26, 2008 IP
  14. touchAshley

    touchAshley Active Member

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    #14
    The Earth will be 'vacant' just like mars one day. Other life will visit here and dig up stuff. You'll be nothing at that point. Pretty neat to think about :)
     
    touchAshley, May 26, 2008 IP
  15. webcosmo

    webcosmo Notable Member

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    #15
    Used to be the case when powerful countries race in space mission fore reasons like building better weapons like missiles, show off.

    These days all countries are business minded--more or less. All countries know that the fuel resources in this world is under threat. They are in desperate attempt to find another resource. In mars they found something like that which literally could solve the fuel problem for thousands of years. I think thats the reason with all these Mars mission. I am sure you all know we are sending human mission to Mars around 2011.
     
    webcosmo, May 26, 2008 IP
  16. jhuynh1026

    jhuynh1026 Peon

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    #16
    thats interesting. i always have doubt about aliens and ufos and stuff like that. i wonder if they are really true...
     
    jhuynh1026, May 27, 2008 IP