What is Digg?75 Comments
- awesometastic1, on 06/15/2008, -0/+36this is absolutely stunning. It is now my new desktop background. I mean we are looking at another planet from the ground level. Someday humans may live there. How are more people not completely blown away by this. I mean 100 years ago most people's primary means of transportation was walking or horses and we barely new anything about anything as a species. Today we are sending semi-autonomous creations to other planets to explore for us. Amazing.
- macosta5811, on 06/15/2008, -1/+28The image's quality is amazing, extraordinary
- maybeishould, on 06/15/2008, -1/+21Quite simply...amazing.
- awesometastic1, on 06/15/2008, -0/+12on another note, am I the only one that thinks we should try an genetically engineer some plant that can survive in extreme conditions like on mars and also produces a buttload of oxygen while consuming a buttload of carbon dioxide? Then we send up a few billion of these seeds and release them in the atmosphere of mars and see what happens. Obviously the water would be the issue (probably not possible to genetically engineer a plant that doesn't need water), but still lets try something :-)
I know they probably want to check things out more to verify there is no life there yet and all that, but come one. Lets get busy terraforming. Mars is like a testbed for all sorts of things we may need to do here on earth after we screw up our planet a little more. Money spent learning to terraform mars even if unsuccessful is bound to yield some great scientific breakthroughs and teach us how to fix our planet. - alapoet, on 06/15/2008, -3/+12Great photo!
Man, it looks really dry out there. Guess there won't be any Martians ambling by. - son1k, on 06/15/2008, -0/+9"Mars appears to have a permanent haze of dust, which remains suspended in the air after duststorms."
"The sky is not blue as on Earth because Martian air is extremely thin and the limonite particles in the air are large relative to the wavelength of visible light. The reddish particles preferentially absorb blue light and effectively act as mirrors by scattering the remaining wavelengths: the color of the atmosphere is therefore pinkish, like the particles themselves."
"If the Martian atmosphere were to be completely cleansed of dust, the daytime sky would appear blue, just as our own sky because of Rayleigh scattering by the molecules (primarily carbon dioxide molecules) which make up the atmosphere."
http://www.webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/14C.html - apo09283, on 06/15/2008, -0/+8If you look closely you can see loads of low, broad hills all over the terrain. A large portion of Eastern WA is covered with these same features which as far as I know are still largely unexplained. I believe they are called hummocks.
- Dustmuffins, on 06/15/2008, -0/+7I had to crop and create my own 16:10 background
http://www.petaimg.com/uploads/1213636956.jpg - matt510, on 06/15/2008, -0/+6Hummocks are generally from volcanic eruptions. I was just up at Mount St. Helens and when the volcano erupted the summit was essentially launched into the air and landed all over the place. Hummocks are pieces of the summit that were scattered by the volcanic force.
I don't think the rolling hills on Mars would be the same because Hummocks are generally like clumps of rock and dirt that can be somewhat large, but not like the hills seen in the picture.
These are two hummocks that were once part of the St. Helens summit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattithyahu/254365793 ... - orion2013, on 06/15/2008, -0/+5We are humans. We can do both.
- pcghost, on 06/15/2008, -0/+5I think the hills you are referring to in Eastern Washington were actually caused by the Missoula flood and eons of wind erosion. We did get the crap kicked out of us by St. Helens though, but it was mostly in the form of several inches of ash fall. I was fishing Clear Lake with my father when she blew. It was amazing.
- matt510, on 06/15/2008, -0/+4I don't think you understand how things work down there...
- 471776, on 06/15/2008, -0/+3We already have plants that do the gas conversion thing. But like you said, can't have plants without water (it's required for photosynthesis among many other things). Anyway, the problem with Mars is that there isn't enough atmosphere. Even if you convert CO2 into O2, you still don't increase the volume of the atmosphere (you'd actually decrease it in this case).
Anyway, we'd only need a small amount of oxygen up there (15% - 25% of the atmosphere). If the atmosphere was 100% oxygen, it'd poison us. A noble gas, such as argon should be the main component of an atmosphere suitable for human and animal life - that, or a very stable molecular element such as N2, which is what we have here on Earth. - lukeduke, on 06/16/2008, -0/+3Looks just like dried red mud in Alabama....it's a fake
- matt510, on 06/15/2008, -0/+2The Earth's atmosphere is not blue because of the ocean.
- radarplane, on 06/15/2008, -1/+3it's Oklahoma!
- matt510, on 06/15/2008, -0/+2The way I have understood it, hummocks are different from the polygons. The polygons are created because of contraction and expansions of the ground whereas hummocks are created in other ways (see my previous comment).
Am I incorrect? - bouche, on 06/16/2008, -0/+2I've got news for you. ANY of the APOD submissions (regardless of their quality), are much more interesting the most of the posts that appear on the Digg front page.
And ONE post a day can be SOOOOO hard to ignore, I know. But just try to use the time it takes to write your lame complaint and just move along. - itcoll, on 06/16/2008, -0/+1what we are gonna do after knowing about the presence of ET ..... ???cook them ?
- bovester, on 06/16/2008, -0/+1The robot's next mission is to retrieve a Babe Ruth autographed baseball from the Beast's backyard.
- catachip, on 06/15/2008, -2/+3It would be far easier to "fix" our planet than to create a new one, we're just too lazy to do it.
- maxmiles, on 06/17/2008, -0/+1Digg it!! LOL
- SirBruce, on 06/15/2008, -0/+1Actually the Martian sky is more of a butterscotch color. But it depends on how much dust is in the atmosphere on any given day.
- stephenhacking, on 06/23/2008, -0/+1Dugg for the love of Mars. Not the God of war. The planet Mars.
- insanebrain, on 06/15/2008, -1/+2Why are these pictures still red ? The sky is blue . .also on mars, so why do I see red?
- MollyDee, on 06/16/2008, -0/+1Wish I was there.....
- robbiedo, on 06/15/2008, -0/+1No molten iron core = no magnetic field + low mass+ solar winds= atmosphere accretion= bummer!
- palehorse864, on 06/15/2008, -0/+1no Marvin?
That makes me very very angry. - robbiedo, on 06/15/2008, -0/+1How do they deal with the lack of a magnetic to defect the solar winds?
- palehorse864, on 06/15/2008, -0/+1I do wish it were sharper up close, oh well.
- reticulate, on 06/15/2008, -0/+1Read the Mars Trilogy.
They do exactly that, along with heating up the permafrost under the soil to build a thicker atmosphere. - palehorse864, on 06/15/2008, -1/+2Especially... the detail.
- matt510, on 06/15/2008, -1/+2Yes, that ONE whole story a day is SO extremely difficult to scroll past...
- matt510, on 06/15/2008, -0/+1No, photograph from the Phoenix.
- TonvanDijk, on 06/16/2008, -0/+0Totally cool
- saadakhtar, on 06/16/2008, -0/+0But what about the rocks... ? - http://www.flyyoufools.com/alien-anal-probage
- leandrotami, on 06/16/2008, -0/+0What if we double check that there isn't any kind of native life on Mars before starting terraforming? I'd be terrible to discover in 100 years that we exterminated the only extraterrestrial life forms ever found.
- leandrotami, on 06/16/2008, -0/+0Oops, we've just emptied that scoop all over the solar panels...
- cbsawyer, on 06/15/2008, -1/+1I've seen hummocks (polygons) like this in northwestern Greenland during the year I worked there. Also on the top of Mt. Cleveland in Montana. However, the terran polygons segregate the larger rocks out to the boundaries.These are due to earth movement during freeze-thaw cycles in underlying permafrost. Is this evidence for permafrost in the Martian Arctic?
- nickallen74, on 06/16/2008, -0/+0I don't know about that - our planet has LOTS of interdependancies amonst the different species that live on it. On Mars we would only be concerned with changing the atmosphere (assuming no life is found there, of course) and not worrying about how those changes affect an existing delicate ecosystem. We have also proven to be quite good at changing the atmosphere of a planet.
- ZPWeeks, on 06/16/2008, -1/+1This image looks like it was enhanced with Adobe® Photoshop® Software.
- estacado, on 06/15/2008, -2/+2sorry dupe.
- estacado, on 06/15/2008, -3/+2Is there a way to specifically block APOD images from showing up? I want my space category stories, but the daily APOD images is just too much.
- FreeTalkLIve, on 06/15/2008, -3/+2I see a lizard.
- estacado, on 06/15/2008, -3/+2Sorry,d upe again.
- palehorse864, on 06/15/2008, -2/+1I had a hummock once. I tried to lay down on it too fast and it flipped over and dumped me on the ground. Darn hummock.
- baylat, on 06/15/2008, -2/+1It feels so surreal.
- dha07030, on 06/15/2008, -3/+2Iron in the soil? Also i don't believe the sky is blue, the atmosphere is very thin and there are no oceans.
- matt510, on 06/15/2008, -2/+1That statement is nonsensical. If it is easier to do something the lazy person does that, if it is harder they do not. If it is easier to fix our planet (as you contend it needs, which is debatable), then that is what the lazy person would do, not the harder thing (creating a new one). Internal consistency of logic is often important to making a good argument.
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