BBC News Today.An object which hit Jupiter last year with the force of a few thousand nuclear bombs leaving a scar the size of the Pacific Ocean is being studied by astronomers as it could give clues about what might happen if a similar object was to hit Earth.
Augustin Sanchez-Lavega from the University of the Basque Country stated “It would be catastrophic”
Of course it will be fucking catastrophic, a thousand nuclear bombs? Scar the size of the Pacific, a third of the earth’s surface area? Come on Augustin.
What else does it tell us? Well nothing actually - Jupiter is 11 times larger than Earth and, wait for it, made up entirely out of gas!
Also on the news this week is the interesting experiment starting in Moscow, one which is hoped will replicate the conditions encountered by a manned trip to Mars. 5 volunteers have agreed to be locked up for 18months in some steel canisters so the psychological and physical implications/limitations can be studied.
Another waste of the license payer’s pixels. This is nothing more than a Sci-fi version of I’m a celebrity get me out of here. I expect during their time inside they will be given tasks such as eating dried baby food and having to wrestle a man dressed as a Cyborg.
Isn’t the real difficulty in a Mars trip, excluding the technical difficulties like inventing a ship which can get there and back, the fact that rescue is clearly not an option.
My suggestion, stick the whole contraption at the bottom of the Mid-Atlantic trench and you then might just have a worthy experiment.
Why would we want to go to Mars anyway? Personally I would find the whole thing extremely exciting – watching the moon landing still fills me with awe but I struggle to come up with a good reason other than cos. Finding evidence that there once was water on the surface isn’t a good enough reason, theres nothing there to rape and pillage and I think it might be some time before real estate prices start to rise in Ophir Chasma.
Captain Cook as we all know discovered Australia and claimed it for the British – a very worthy endeavor if you excuse the pun. However this was not the purpose of his voyage. No one sat down with James Cook and said “heres a boat n stuff, go off and find somewhere hot for us to send our criminals”. No, he was originally tasked with recording the transit of Venus across the sun.
Royal Society: James sit down would you, tea?
Captain Cook: No thanks.
Royal Society: James we want to ask you if you fancy going on a trip somewhere? We will provide you with a big boat and some men.
Captain Cook: Sure, what do you want me to do – expand the Empire? Kill some brown people? Pick a fight with Asia?
Royal Society: Actually, no. We want you to record the transit of Venus across the sun.
Captain Cook: You want what?
Royal Society: Venus, sun, transit.
Captain Cook: Do I get paid?
Remember the only form of recording instrument was painting back then so he probably got his mate to knock up some pictures of planets and stuff then sailed South to find somewhere hot where the women wore very little and in the process discovered Australia.
If the British Royal Society back then were willing to invest in an expedition to draw some pictures of planets then a Mars expedition isn’t beyond the realms of possibility. It will take superhuman political will, some very serious technological advances and a few very brave people. What it will not require is some men sitting in tin sheds in Moscow bickering with each other and I sincerely doubt very much we will find a martian Botany Bay up there.
Will we ever go to Mars? Probably.
Why? To paraphrase my mother “because I said so”
Why would we want to go to Mars anyway? Personally I would find the whole thing extremely exciting – watching the moon landing still fills me with awe but I struggle to come up with a good reason other than cos. Finding evidence that there once was water on the surface isn’t a good enough reason, theres nothing there to rape and pillage and I think it might be some time before real estate prices start to rise in Ophir Chasma.
Captain Cook as we all know discovered Australia and claimed it for the British – a very worthy endeavor if you excuse the pun. However this was not the purpose of his voyage. No one sat down with James Cook and said “heres a boat n stuff, go off and find somewhere hot for us to send our criminals”. No, he was originally tasked with recording the transit of Venus across the sun.
Royal Society: James sit down would you, tea?
Captain Cook: No thanks.
Royal Society: James we want to ask you if you fancy going on a trip somewhere? We will provide you with a big boat and some men.
Captain Cook: Sure, what do you want me to do – expand the Empire? Kill some brown people? Pick a fight with Asia?
Royal Society: Actually, no. We want you to record the transit of Venus across the sun.
Captain Cook: You want what?
Royal Society: Venus, sun, transit.
Captain Cook: Do I get paid?
Remember the only form of recording instrument was painting back then so he probably got his mate to knock up some pictures of planets and stuff then sailed South to find somewhere hot where the women wore very little and in the process discovered Australia.
If the British Royal Society back then were willing to invest in an expedition to draw some pictures of planets then a Mars expedition isn’t beyond the realms of possibility. It will take superhuman political will, some very serious technological advances and a few very brave people. What it will not require is some men sitting in tin sheds in Moscow bickering with each other and I sincerely doubt very much we will find a martian Botany Bay up there.
Will we ever go to Mars? Probably.
Why? To paraphrase my mother “because I said so”
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