"... MESSENGER, the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury, has observed something new and interesting on the first planet from the Sun..." (Source) The official NASA announcement will be made today (Nov. 29) at 2:00pm EST. The event could be watched live at the link referenced as the source. After the Curiosity's "one for the history books" story I'm not really setting my hopes too high this time... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I think 0.1-1 trillion tons of ice with organics sprinkled in it is a pretty fucking big discovery, certainty "one for the history books"! Mars gets to much attention! The other planets clearly have surprises for us!
"NASA has confirmed the presence of ice covered by an unknown organic material inside craters near the planet's north pole - two major building blocks for life! " That is big news. Organic materials are molecules that contain carbon. It's still a long way from DNA and ribonuclic acids, but still. And they found water, in the last place you'd ever expect: Mercury! The odds of their being life out there just improved.
Is it all that surprising to find water or other ices in permanently shadowed areas? Not to downplay the announcement, but it would be more of a surprise *not* to find something there.
Why is that a big deal for you? I mean you are currently in communication with aliens for crying out loud.
If a place like Mercury has organic ooze and water, then organic material+water is probably all over the universe. It increases the chance of finding another planet where the spark of life has occurred. Telepathic communication is nice; one can get aid, comfort, and important clues to warp drive technology, but it's still not "physical contact". It's not first contact.
the sadness is that instead of searching the places that may have life and can be potentially useful for us in the future, our efforts are aimed at places like Mercury...We need to invest missions to Titan, Enceladus, and Europa.
for what? for pretty wallpaper pictures of meteorite craters infused with solar dust? What can we learn from Mercury that we could not have learned from our own Sun up close? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
