Recent content by Timber

The fact that Mars is red comes close to proving in itself that at one time it was home to a very large biome. The methane plumes may lead us to absolute proof. Then there's the Viking data, which appeared to find evidence of current-day extremophile bacteria...

There's a thing called "Planetary Protection." Either we live by that as a moral code, or we just bulldoze it all until it looks like Texas to us.

Because of the moral hazard that their country assumes when they do (the huge expense of ongoing resupply, and the poor prospects of a return journey), and the damage they will do to a pristine ecosystem when they arrive. I'd be fully in favor of PROHIBITING any Americans from landing on Mars...

Isn't that sophistry? Establishment and resupply of a colony (like Jamestown, for instance) presupposes enormous external state support. One can expect that other nations would vociferously object under the terms of the treaty. And I didn't say it couldn't be done; just that it would be illegal...

From Nimmo & Spencer, "Powering Triton's recent geological activity by obliquity tides: Implications for Pluto geology" "While Pluto may have experienced ancient tectonic deformation, we do not anticipate seeing the kind of young, deformed surfaces seen at Triton." This was written in January...

PS just lightly read the paper (yes, I should've carefully read it before responding). My read of it is that their microplate aggregation theory is not incompatible with mine, which only postulates that the bulk of the extant continents were original crust which survived the Theia-Gaia...

We have routinely underestimated the caloric value OVER TIME of tidal kneading by a large factor. To me, it's obviously why the Earth has such a hot interior (our Moon) and Mars such a now cold interior (probably "ate" a major moon that didn't orbit fast enough, according to recent theory -...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty "The treaty explicitly forbids any government from claiming a celestial resource such as the Moon or a planet.[7] Article II of the Treaty states that "outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national...

Not only is the idea of colonizing Mars anytime soon ridiculous, it's also illegal and immoraL.

<<My impression was that the impact had destroyed the entire crust. I would be interested in any references supporting only partial destruction.>> My reference is the existence of the continental cratons as they are, and the oceans, that unless one has a better explanation (fractional...

Are we ignoring the Theia-Gaia collision which evidently destroyed probably 75% of the primordial crust (the remaining 25% being the extant continental cratons, more or less), formed the Moon, and the quite significant tidal kneading from the Moon's orbit?