Re: Live - Mars Rover Landing on the 18th

So while we're busy knocking ourselves out about the release of CO2 into our atmosphere and the Mars atmosphere is full of the stuff, and it's never done the Martians any harm has it.....

Re: Live - Mars Rover Landing on the 18th

Perhaps the Martians polluted the planet and killed it off by global warming before travelling to Earth to kill this planet using the same tactics?

Re: Live - Mars Rover Landing on the 18th

Good theory Judd, but I think Mars is too far away from the sun for it to have ever sustained life as we know it.....And it's a bit short of water....

Re: Live - Mars Rover Landing on the 18th

Except that Mars' orbit is 50million km further from the sun than Earth (that 50 million km is not right but of the right order of Earths closest approach to Mars - my memory used to be pretty good but not that good)

However Martians are known to have been watching us, I read about it in a book which I keep on my bookshelf.

"No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.

The planet Mars, I scarcely need remind the reader, revolves about the sun at a mean distance of 140,000,000 miles, and the light and heat it receives from the sun is barely half of that received by this world. It must be, if the nebular hypothesis has any truth, older than our world; and long before this earth ceased to be molten, life upon its surface must have begun its course. The fact that it is scarcely one seventh of the volume of the earth must have accelerated its cooling to the temperature at which life could begin. It has air and water and all that is necessary for the support of animated existence. "

See?

Re: Live - Mars Rover Landing on the 18th

Indeed Bruce, Mars is in fact 50% further away from the Sun than we are. The average temperature at the moment is minus 63 degrees C. The atmosphere is made up mainly of CO2, so that kicks the theory of global warming into touch. In fact, if it wasn't for the greenhouse effect here on Earth, we would not be able to survive.

There has never been any Volcanic activity on Mars, or at least not that we have recorded. So a boiling hot bubbling mass of lava is unlikely to be situated at the core of Mars, and Ice ages have been observed in the past. The average temperature at the poles is minus 187 degrees C......This would be the Earth without the greenhouse effect....So be careful what you wish for...

Re: Live - Mars Rover Landing on the 18th

I fear that is a bit of a very unscientific leap, perhaps it would be even colder were it not for the CO2 - remember the inverse square law for radiation/heat etc. Considering the thin atmosphere and the distance -63'C doesn't seem that much difference to Earth

Re: Live - Mars Rover Landing on the 18th

Thanks Bruce, ...But there is far more CO2 in the Mars atmosphere than in our own, plus a greater concentration of Methane (so the greenhouse effect should be more severe) so wouldn't that cancel out any discrepancy you might have found? I still maintain that without the greenhouse effect humans would not survive on earth.
Love the thermometer by the way...

Re: Live - Mars Rover Landing on the 18th

Enjoying the comments very much...

To add to the discussion, Mars once had significant volcanic activity and very probably a runaway greenhouse event.

It's theorized that the most significant reason for any significant greenhouse effect, despite the high presence of CO2 and some CH4, is the very thin atmosphere and the weak magnetosphere that prevents radiation from depleting the atmosphere. (There was probably an impact by an asteroid long ago that knocked down the dynamo or rapid cooling). As a result, the solar wind continues to knock that atmosphere away.

Re: Live - Mars Rover Landing on the 18th

....With all due respect, obviously.....

Wiki says:-

Scientists have never recorded an active volcano eruption on the surface of Mars; moreover, searches for thermal signatures and surface changes within the last decade have not yielded any positive evidence for active volcanism.

Re: Live - Mars Rover Landing on the 18th

They are talking about recent, active volcanos, OGF. There were plenty in the planet's early days. Olympus Mons comes to mind. It is roughly the size of Greece.