Showing posts with label Mars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mars. Show all posts

July 20 - Moon Day

   Posted on July 20, 2022     


This is an update of my post published on July 20, 2011:



Celebrate the first day that human beings stepped foot on another world!

When you feel discouraged about people's stupidity and cruelty, look up in the sky at the moon and remember that, MORE THAN HALF A CENTURY AGO, we went there! Today marks the 53rd anniversary of Apollo 11's successful voyage of hundreds of thousands of miles to our nearest celestial neighbor, in 1969.





We can also celebrate the 1976 landing of the Viking I Lander on Mars. This intrepid unmanned spacecraft traveled hundreds of millions of miles to Earth's next-door planet, and it was the first to successfully land on Mars. Viking I transmitted many photos of Mars and ran a variety of experiments over a period of over six and a half years!



We need to get back to in-person explorations of the moon! And putting humans on Mars, too!


Check out other years' Moon Day posts, in "Also on this date" below:

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August 6 - Life on Mars?????!?!!!

Posted on August 6, 2020

Meteorites are found all the time - especially in Antarctica, where the dark space stones show up well on the ice!



Scientists think that some meteorites found on the Earth originated on Mars. These meteorites are made up of elements in the same mix as rocks and air on Mars. 


You may wonder, okay, but how do rocks on Mars travel to Earth?

Most meteorites are created when something in space impacts another something - for example, when two asteroids collide, or when an asteroid hits a moon or planet - and those impacts spray rocks in all directions - some towards Earth's orbit. So it makes sense that some meteorites found on Earth are from Mars!

Okay, so we find meteorites often, and meteorites that originated on Mars sometimes...

But what about a meteorite - found on Earth - that has evidence of ancient life on Mars?

On this date in 1996, a group of scientists announced that they had found evidence for ancient microscopic life inside a Mars-originating meteorite!

Wow! That would be an absolute first - first evidence of actual life on another planet or another anything-other-than Earth.

BUT, alas, the electron microscopic photos that seemed to show fossilized bacteria could be explained in less dramatic ways. For example, the wormlike structures could just be uneven patches in the coating used to study samples with electron microscopes!


It's not certain that the meteorite (ALH 84001) does NOT have microfossils, but it's also not certain that it does. Science inches forward by testing and retesting hypotheses - which are educated guesses of how things work - and by replicating earlier work. Some scientists who work with meteorites, with Martian rocks still on Mars, and with astrobiology are trying to look for evidence of ancient Martian life, trust me! 

So even though science-in-general finds the claim about ALH 84001 premature, it's not ridiculous and might - unlikely, but might - prove to be true.


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July 20 - Moon Day 50!!!

Posted on July 20, 2019


Half a century since humans first landed on the Moon!

That's...astonishing to those of us who actually remember it. It still seems...so modern, so current, so cutting-edge of human exploration. I guess because, in the past 50 years, nobody's really topped it.

There have been - so far - zero humans landing on Mars, for example.

Neil Armstrong talked about a "giant leap" for humanity...but of course it was the 1960s (and, back then, the U.S. hadn't even had a single female astronaut!), and we hadn't done much in the way of getting rid of sexist language at that point...

...So Armstrong called it a giant leap for mankind. 

At any rate, while we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing, we should reignite our spirit of adventure and get excited about new explorations for humankind!


Look up local events to celebrate Apollo 50th! This article talks about some celebrations in my neck of the woods (not just Los Angeles, but all over "the West"). 

 NASA has Apollo50th television programming and events listed here.

 Turning to Mars, NASA has some great resources in its Mars Exploration Program.


Mars One is a private effort with the goal of starting a colony on Mars. Check it out!

Elon Musk has ambitious plans for SpaceX, including settling Mars and even terraforming it (changing the planet's atmosphere to make it livable for humans without domes or spacesuits.
Could we make Mars look like this someday?
If so, should we?

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