Exciting times.
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âŚnope. No, no no, nopity NOPE. 
What has been found are some minerals that here on Earth could be produced by life but we donât know wether anabiotic processes can also produce them (nor why they shouldnât) thus NASA is going to review them further just in case. Itâs not a âyes lifeâ, itâs not a âmaybe lifeâ itâs a tiny bit of âmaybe not anabiotic but seriously it might well be anabiotic because itâs an alien planet with alien chemistry and weâve danced this dance beforeâ.
For a no-hype, no clickbait version, the BBC has you covered:
âŚand now, letâs debunk some common misconceptions about Quantum physicsâŚ
PS: well, also the previous 10 myths about PhysicsâŚ
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If you watched the video he did say the science on it does say that geology does sometime form odd shapes. That he was not concluding that it was a fossil. That until there is damn good evidence and a solid consensus. That life on mars is still just essentially speculation.
Surprised I didnât notice this thread earlier, it is well thought out. I once had a small debate, with a man, while helping him change his tire. In conversation, he stated his belief the reason for winter was due to the Earth being further away from the sun, the Earth obit decaying was causing global temperatures to rise.
I thought to myself, thank God he isnât a flat Earther, maybe this will be easier⌠it wasnât. I explained that weather, on our little dust spec in space, dictates the temperatures more than the sun. The sun warms the surface of the Earth, but by his model people would instantly freeze to death at night. The atmosphere holds that heat in like a warm woolly blanket. The thick atmosphere is causing the rise and not distance. Carbon gases are greenhouse gases which are not used up and hold the heat in longer. The tilt of the Earth on its axis changes the angle of the suns rays giving us more heat in the summer and less in the winter. If the sun heated the planet by distance, it would be summer in both the northern and southern hemispheres and there would be no seasons.
We finished the flat fix, and as we parted, he thanked me for assisting. Then he said, âYou got an interesting theory there, maybe you should be working for NASA or something.â. I just waved and wished him a safe journey.
Remember, no good deed goes unpunished.
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I read somewhere many years ago where the idea was to design a craft that could match the asteroids speed and trajectory and then carefully manipulate it onto a new trajectory, I think it was more of a futuristic idea.
I like the laser ablation idea where lasers are used to heat part of the surface of the asteroid to create a propultion effect, again this is another futeristic idea as it would require some sort of space platform capable of harnessing and outputting lots of energy. There are major drawback to a ground based laser ablation where it would require too much power.
I think the best hope is first understanding how to create a craft that can match an asteroids trajectory/speed, once thatâs achieved we would need a series of âsolar powered laser dronesâ which can be deployed from the said craft and work on heating up a part of the asteroid to achieve the propultion effect then carefully create a new trajectory for the asteroid over months/years.
I think this idea is the best as the tech exists now or could be created/modified in a good 5 to 10 years, I think the tech is definitely available to improve upon such an idea where the goal is to have such a craft monitoring or guiding all asteriods that pose a threat. This is definitely worthy of long term investment as there will need to be something in place protecting us.
Oh wow! I just AI Googled: Can a satelite fly along side an asteroid?
âYes, a spacecraft can fly alongside an asteroid. This is known as a rendezvous mission. Multiple space missions have successfully done this, including orbiting and even landing on asteroids.â
So it looks like they are already doing good work towards this, I guess now we just need to work out how to deploy/manage drones in space, or even have the satelite capable of outputting a low powered laser beam to create a propultion effect over months/years.
AI could definitely process the data the satelite scans and work out where to create the propultion spot.
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AI Googled: What is Ternery Computing?
"Ternary computing uses a three-state, base-3 system of âtritsâ (0, 1, and 2, or -1, 0, and +1) instead of the standard binary âbitsâ (0 or 1). This system offers theoretical advantages like more efficient data representation and potential energy savings, but practical challenges in hardware and the dominance of the binary standard have prevented widespread adoption. While early ternary computers, such as the Soviet âSetun,â were developed, binary remains the ubiquitous computing standard today. "
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There are 10 types of people:
- Those that understand Ternary,
- Those that donât,
- Those that thought this was the Binary joke.
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Huawei patents âternary logicâ to develop energy-efficient AI chips
https://www.huaweicentral.com/huawei-patents-ternary-logic-to-develop-energy-efficient-ai-chips/
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@Uriel_the_Flame wordsalad url?
The information I am trying to share while intoxicated is the 4th dimension explained by a high school graduate
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Today we play this and other games, assuming we will travel to the stars in rockets. Rockets have been around since ancient China and gunpowder. Centuries later and we are still standing on top a metal bucket full of dynamite hoping to fly and not die.
Most discoveries are made unintentional and often get overlooked. The ancients Greeks in 30 BC had simple steam engines called aeolipiles they considered them nothing but toys without any practical application. Had one Grecian inventor applied this to power any cart or boat the industrial revolution would have taken place over 2000 years ago.
This makes me wonder what we are overlooking today, because we are so set on using the rockets? If we must travel into space by vehicle, then think of this approach. What if you shot an arrow into the air? It travels on the inertia to another point where it is reloaded and fired again. There are clear issues here, how to reload the vehicle. Does it take the launch mechanism with it? How much energy is needed? All of this requires study, but people would rather use rockets.
You might have noticed I said, IF we must use a vehicle. What if we simply walk from the Earth to another planet? Gravitational forces of theoretical wormholes would most likely tear you apart. However assuming Alan Guth and Alexei Starobinsky are correct, we would need to find a method to breach a pocket universe (aka bubble universe) and travel to any point within our own.
To give a simple model, if your kitchen table represents the known universe, tiny cup on it would be the pocket universe. However the pocket universe is not part of the known universe and exists outside the known universe. One enters the pocket universe and exits back out anywhere in the known universe. Basically this is represented in Eve as filaments and probably would not even require much more than a pressure suit to travel from point to point.
We need to be more observant and keep looking at everything for the possibilities. Tossing something aside and saying it is not worth further study was too often done in the past. So many discoveries made are now just footnotes in history.
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There is such a thing on paper at least called a space elevator or sometime referred to as a star ladder. The problem is both logistics and, while the technology is all there, it is the deployment, materials, and upkeep(costs) that keep it from being attempted. That is just one proposal among many others.
The space elevator would be attached to a platform that would be geo synced to the base of the space elevator. Thus giving it a stable and reliable way to get to the thermosphere. That is where the International space station is in orbit by the way.
As for reaching other planets or our moon. There are some very good proposals, you will have to pardon me for not linking them at the moment, that might give propulsion better and be more efficient. To get a vehicle to the moon or other planets in the solar system. Though those are proposals and none to my knowledge have moved off the drawing board.
Also better fuels are being looked at by JPL and others around the world to have a more efficient way to move a vehicle. Either at lift off or flying to another planet. A lot of work is going into these ideas. A lot of people are thinking of how to get to another planet a lot faster and more effectively.
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You should watch the TV show called Foundation.
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I read the books waaaayy back in High school. Reread some of them from time to time. Much better.
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The thing with rocketry is that we kind of know the answers and the roadblocks⌠but theyâre roadblocks for a reason.
The power of a thermal machine is related to temperature. Thus hotter engines give out more thrust.
The hotter rocket engine we sue is the hidrogen+oxygen engine. The bonding of hydrogen and oxygen is a very exothermic reaction that reaches high temperature. Itâs nott he msot exothermal reaction, but is one we can kidn fo control most fo the times. Other exothermal reactions are much more powerful but theyâre too powerful (many reactions involving fluorine dwarf oxygen, but one doesnât controls fluorine, you just get out of its way).
Whatâs next? Chemical reactions already are a spowerful as we can control (or too powerful to control by any easy means) thus then come atomic forces. An easy engine using atomic forces is the ion engine, which uses atoms deprived of their electrons (ionized plasma) to give them a electrostatic acceleration with velocities far higher than those of chemical reactions. But the amount of plasma we can generate and control limits the amount of propellant the engine can manage. Ion thrusters use very low mass at very high velocity (velocity means itâs hotter, and hotter is better) but we can only make them so powerful before the mass required to control the plasma becomes an issue. They are specialyzed engines, using tiny mass and massive speed to generate a small acceleration for very large periods to reach efficency and higher velocities than chemical engines.
Whatâs next? The nuclear forces. Rip atoms apart and then the enormous energy this liberates can heat massive amounts of propellant at velocities smaller than ion thrusters but far higher than chemical engines: once again, hotter is better. But splitting atoms also generates radiation, which we must shield against, adding mass to the vehicle, and keeping the thermal balance of the engine without it self-destroying is a delicate matter.
And then on top, fusing atoms is the most powerful energy we know. Lighter atoms becoming one larger puts to action the strongest force in nature, albeit it has such small reach that we just overlook it. The exaust from a fusion engine would be hotter than that of an ion thruster, and we could add in propellant to help cooling and generating massive thrust with even moe heat than nuclear fision⌠but so far we are quite away from sustaining nuclear fusion, let alone allow some of it to escape for propulsion.
So itâs all about hotter engines. Chemical is hot, nuclear fision is hotter, ion thrust is even hotter, and on top of all nuclear fusion is the hottest. but the hotter a rocket engine is, the harder it is to control and that might negate the benefits of hotter exhaust through excess mass.
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And also from this from JPL of how to get people back from Mars..
Or read Arthur Clarkeâs The Fountains of Paradise - which deals with the construction of a space elevator.
There is a related idea to the idea of an orbital tower, that addresses some of the materials problems (and creates other problemsâŚ) which is the orbital fountain, using the inertial of a mass flow (lumps, liquids or particle flow) to support the weight of the tower.
And a variant of that which is an orbital (or sub-orbital) archâŚ