Take A Little Piece of Mars, Now, Honey

NASA is sending a hunk of Mars back to the red planet.

That's pretty fucking cool.

A pretty damn ingenious idea!

Please change the title of this thread to more accurately reflect that it's supposed to be a discussion of the Mars 2020 mission. I would have posted in this thread if I'd actually realized that's what you were talking about.

Either that, or keep my thread open.

And we’re on are way to Mars!

How come no probes are ever sent to Mars's poles to search for evidence of past, or possibly still existing life. If Mars has life, & I mean life as we know it, the poles would be a good place to check for evidence of its current or past existence. Especially Mars's north pole, being its made of water ice. Be good to check the south pole too, even though IIRC its made of dry ice, or is half or mostly dry ice. They should investigate both poles for evidence of past or current life.

And what about Mars's mountains. Could there be some residual heat still coming up from the interior(?) that may be enabling life to survive within its mountains? Just a thought.

Uh, oh. Nothing on any of NASA's official accounts that I can find as of yet, though.

Matt Wallace, NASA's deputy project manager for Perseverance, said Perseverance may have experienced a "temperature transient" event after launch that could have placed its computer in a protective safe mode, but more time is needed to confirm the telemetry. It should take about an hour to wrap that up, he said.

https://www.space.com/news/live/mars-perseverance-rover-updates

14:51:45 EDT


PERSEVERANCE ROVER IN 'SAFE MODE' AFTER LAUNCH
NASA officials just confirmed that the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover entered a protective "safe mode" after its launch today due to an unexpected temperature condition on the spacecraft.

The rover's launch was successful, with Perseverance on the right path to Mars. But shortly after liftoff, telemetry indicated the rover entered a "safe mode" due to unexpectedly cold temperatures, NASA officials said.

"Data indicate the spacecraft had entered a state known as safe mode, likely because a part of the spacecraft was a little colder than expected while Mars 2020 was in Earth's shadow," NASA officials said in a statement. "All temperatures are now nominal and the spacecraft is out of Earth's shadow."

"Safe mode" is a protective state for spacecraft and rovers in which they shut down non-essential systems until receiving new commands from Earth.

"An interplanetary launch is fast-paced and dynamic, so a spacecraft is designed to put itself in safe mode if its onboard computer perceives conditions are not within its preset parameters," NASA officials wrote in the statement. "Right now, the Mars 2020 mission is completing a full health assessment on the spacecraft and is working to return the spacecraft to a nominal configuration for its journey to Mars."

Testing the helicopter while in space.

okay I was reading one of the related links about life on Mars. They said liquid water once flowed because of evidence of carved out riverbeds & canyons and whatnot.
Well my question is this: what other elements can exist in a liquid state that could have carved out the canyons? I'm not doubting that water flowed, I'm just asking were there other liquid elements on Mars besides water that could have flowed with an action similar to water?

No. It was within the sweet spot for liquid water. There is lots of water on Mars (see Martian poles). Nothing else would flow at those temps (it would be a gas). See methane lakes on Titan.

Just to clarify, it lands on Feb 18.

Oh I see! Well in that case then I would guess that since water was (and is) present, then based on what we on earth consider the requirements for life, getting deep enough into the soil to be sheltered from the intense radiation but still have adequate liquid water readily available (and an energy source) would be the key to survival. If the conditions on Mars didn't change too rapidly, life would have had time to evolve and thus survive. The more primitive the life form the faster it could evolve of course. It certainly wouldn't surprise me if there is still life on Mars of some type. Would it be RNA based? DNA based? Something different entirely? I can't imagine how exciting it would be to find life there and study the nuts & bolts of it.

That's one of the reasons I want to live a long, long time. This ups my odds of being around when they do eventually find life outside of earth or even better find the X factor that turns non-living chemistry into living chemistry. In other words the mechanism for initiating life on earth. I have a gut feeling that it is right in front of our faces but we just haven't figured it out yet. When we do there will be a collective from the scientific world.

Better chance is to find life on Europa. It has liquid water seas beneath the surface. Watch Europa Report for a cool SF flick that gives it a "real space" treatment.

Given what we know about extremophiles here on Earth and the presence of bacteria and so forth in deep layer sediments, I'd put the odds of microbial life on Mars at about 30% myself.

those are still pretty good odds. Ideally there will be concurrent expeditions to Europa, Mars, and any other reachable locations in the near future and one of them will pan out.
Statistically I have at least twenty years left to live, and factoring in my current health I could realistically add another ten years to that.

China successfully got their probe into Mars orbit yesterday. Will apparently hang out there for a few months before deploying the lander. Here's its first photo transmitted back to earth:

Today's the day!

Was just watching the live feed from NASA. Perseverance is down safely on the surface of Mars.

MARS, bitches!!!!

It's down!

First image.

Nailed the landing.

That man never watched an episode of Stargate in his life.

right on time.....