[Red Badger]

If CARBON DIOXIDE causes Global Warming, why isn't Mars HOT AS HELL?.....................

[LastDayz]

Since R-12 refrigerant (well... any refrigerant really) is heavier than air, how does it get up into the stratosphere and supposedly destroy the ozone layer?

Inquiring minds want too know.

[SaveFerris]

[A Bonus 'Hitchhiker' Will Come Back From Mars]

[Celtic Conservative]

A bonus hitchhiker?

Ford Prefect?

Zaphod Beeblebrox?

Don’t Panic!

CC

[dfwgator]

I have my Slim Whitman records ready, just in case.

[dangus]

Because it’s far away and has a very thin atmosphere? I know you’re trying to help, but understanding the science so poorly just sorta makes us look silly.

[adorno]

Is that Martian ‘brown stuff’ in that picture?

The moon is made of cheese but Mars is totally ‘brown stuff’.

Non wonder Mars has no Martians anymore; the brown stuff was too toxic.

[moovova]

Shades of “Andromeda Strain”.

[Psalm 73]

"But the rover has also picked up hitchhikers..."

Andromeda Strain?

Triffids?

The latest Chuck Berry release?

[Magnum44]

Does this hitchhiker need a guide?

[Wuli]

The early scientific view of Mars atmosphere was that something went wrong in the past and it was once more favorable to abundent water and life.

That is partially right but not totally.

The first thing is that an atmosphere does not just hang around because it wants to, something must help it kling to the planet, and the main something is gravity. Martian gravity is slightly over 1/3 of Earth’s.

The second thing is the atmosphere can be broken down by the high energy particle of the sun. One thing that can protect the atmosphere is a strong magnetic field, like Earth has and Mars does not.

Current science believes Mars once had a strong magnetic field, but the internal dynamo that created that field shut down about a very long time ago.

With very weak gravity and a very weak planetary magnetosphere, a robust atmosphere with plenty of water had but a fleeting moment in time on Mars.

[JesusIsLord]

Let's see. 24 rocks costing $11 Billion .... comes to around $458 million per rock.

And you thought gold was a good investment! /s

[Jan_Sobieski]

“People think of the Moon as airless, but it has a very tenuous atmosphere that interacts with the lunar surface rocks over time,” said Just Simon, a geochemist at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, in a NASA release. “That includes noble gases leaking out of the Moon’s interior and collecting at the lunar surface.”

How would he know? All of the rock samples supposedly brought from the moon were fraudulent earth sourced petrified wood.