"Where Did All of Mars' Carbon Go?" --JPL and Caltech

Galaxy Today ^ | November 24, 2015 | Staff

[lbryce]

Caltech and JPL scientists suggest the fingerprints of early photochemistry provide a solution to the long-standing mystery. Mars is blanketed by a thin, mostly carbon dioxide atmosphere—one that is far too thin to prevent large amounts of water on the surface of the planet from subliming or evaporating. But many researchers have suggested that the planet was once shrouded in an atmosphere many times thicker than Earth's. For decades that left the question, "Where did all the carbon go?"

Now a team of scientists from Caltech and JPL thinks they have a possible answer. The researchers suggest that 3.8 billion years ago, Mars might have had only a moderately dense atmosphere. They have identified a photochemical process that could have helped such an early atmosphere evolve into the current thin one without creating the problem of "missing" carbon and in a way that is consistent with existing carbon isotopic measurements.

[lbryce]

Algore and the Democrats had all the carbon siphoned out of the Martian atmosphere had it shipped to Earth releasing it over North America where it remains as an unmoving cloud of gassy liberal flatulence.

[dp0622]

that was so much @#$@$ing better than what i was going to say lol.

you have to be fast on this website.

[ClearCase_guy]

a photochemical process that could have helped such an early atmosphere evolve into the current thin one

Call me paranoid, but I believe scientists are sort of programmed to talk about all sorts of things "evolving".

The ideology of secular humanism wants "evolution" to be a central and indispensable concept in all of science. Therefore, atmospheres "evolve".

They could just as easily (and more correctly) say "change". But they don't.

[Fungi]

Please give me the specifics, how do they know carbon was ever there and how was it measured? And now they claim it is gone? Again, give me the specific details. Another rouse to keep a lot of scientists getting their paycheck at our expense. Enough of this crap already.

[Mastador1]

I believe that the Martian equivalent of Algore actually succeeded in convincing his fellow Martians to eliminate all CO2 emissions which led to the total elimination of life on Mars.

[dr_lew]

Now a team of scientists from Caltech and JPL thinks they have a possible answer.

Reminds me of that scene with Charlton Heston, as the Navy Captain, and Hal Holbrook as the Code Breaker in BATTLE OF MIDWAY. Holbrook gives him their conclusion and Heston exclaims, "You're guessing!" Holbrook mildly replies, "Well, we like to call it analysis."

So I'm gonna say, "They're guessing!"

[lbryce]

Well, I had the advantage of having as much time as necessary to think up of something that others did not have the luxury of. Nevertheless, thanks for the compliment.

[dp0622]

Speaking of which, why did google have man evolving from ape to current form on its website yesterday?

was it some kind of “evolution” holiday? :)

just curious if anyone knew besides the fact that they are Christian hating @#$@#$s who think that all Christians are offended by evolution.

I dont know if it’s true or not. I have enough trouble finding the circuit-breaker.

If it was good enough for God, it’s good enough for me.

[Smokin' Joe]

Did they buy it on credit?

[Smokin' Joe]

Evolution is seen as the scientific progression toward perfection.

At times, it has been used as an excuse to take what "more primitive" people have, to ignore wisdom gleaned empirically because those who gleaned it are 'inferior', to establish "elites".

It also gives those same elites all the excuse they need to keep fixing things that aren't broke.

[Smokin' Joe]

Just curious, but I wonder if they had the ape on the Left and Modern Man on the Right?

[dp0622]

yes :)

which is fitting, politically.

[oblomov]

Marxism, and the Hegelian garden in which it grew, asserts “evolution” or change as a progression toward perfection.

However, Darwin and Huxley did not regard evolution as a progression. Specifically, what appears to be “evolution” is in fact just a result of natural selection, e.g.., we don’t see cheetah that are slow-moving because such animals don’t survive long enough to produce offspring. The biological nice that cheetah occupy requires a fast-moving animal.

Hume said that humans often see progression when there is only sequence. His analogy was that we are like a man who is watching a cat walk past a slit on the other side of a fence. He sees the head, then the body, then the tail, and concludes that the head caused the tail.

[Bob434]

[[”Where Did All of Mars’ Carbon Go?” —JPL and Caltech ]]

Didn’;t you read the news? Al Gore saved Mars by regulating carbon there back around the time he invented the internets

[Smokin' Joe]

Still, the overall attitude is that the earlier and simpler forms are "primitive", whereas the more recent and complex forms are "advanced".

Therefore more recent and complex societies are more "advanced", just like more recent and complicated technologies, etc.

A progression is not necessary for the attitude to emerge, even if it is strongly implied.

The abuses of the logical pattern remain.

[Texas Patriot61]

Soooo if I got this straight, The atmosphere on Mars was too thin to prevent the water from evaporating into space. So how is it possible for the water to evaporate when the average temperature on Mars is nowhere near warm enough for water to evaporate?

[Smokin' Joe]

It doesn't evaporate, per se, it sublimates.

The same thing that gets the ice off of roads in the winter in North Dakota.

The atmosphere will support a certain number of water molecules even at low temperatures (well below freezing), and the water makes a phase change directly from solid to vapor.

[Natufian]

Have you tried reading the scientific research paper the article is based on? That might provide many of the answers you’re looking for.

[ClearCase_guy]

Just curious, but I wonder if they had the ape on the Left and Modern Man on the Right?

It was the anniversary of Louis Leakey finding the "Lucy" fossil in 1974. What struck me as especially odd, was that they chose to celebrate the 41st anniversary. Whaaaaaaaaat? Who cares about the 41st anniversary?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks lbryce.

Mars is blanketed by a thin, mostly carbon dioxide atmosphere -- one that is far too thin to prevent large amounts of water on the surface of the planet from subliming or evaporating. But many researchers have suggested that the planet was once shrouded in an atmosphere many times thicker than Earth's. For decades that left the question, "Where did all the carbon go?" Now a team of scientists from Caltech and JPL... have identified a photochemical process that could have helped such an early atmosphere evolve into the current thin one without creating the problem of "missing" carbon and in a way that is consistent with existing carbon isotopic measurements.

Sagan worship coitinues.

• Red planet's hue due to meteors, not water

  "There is something of a paradox about Mars," agrees Joshua Bandfield of Arizona State University in Tempe. His team recently showed that the planet has no large deposits of carbonates, which should have formed if giant pools of water had persisted on the surface. Bandfield suggests that liquid water must have occasionally burst out of the ground, carving channels and gullies, but that it quickly froze again in the frigid Martian climate.

• Red Planet's Ancient Equator Located
• New Theory: Catastrophe Created Mars' Moons
• Mars moon emerges from the dark [Phobos]

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