Aug 13, 2024 06:44 PM
Scientists find oceans of water on Mars. It's just too deep to tap.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1053948
INTRO: Using seismic activity to probe the interior of Mars, geophysicists have found evidence for a large underground reservoir of liquid water — enough to fill oceans on the planet's surface.
The data from NASA's Insight lander allowed the scientists to estimate that the amount of groundwater could cover the entire planet to a depth of between 1 and 2 kilometers, or about a mile.
While that’s good news for those tracking the fate of water on the planet after its oceans disappeared more than 3 billion years ago, the reservoir won't be of much use to anyone trying to tap into it to supply a future Mars colony. It's located in tiny cracks and pores in rock in the middle of the Martian crust, between 11.5 and 20 kilometers below the surface. Even on Earth, drilling a hole a kilometer deep is a challenge.
The finding does pinpoint another promising place to look for life on Mars, however, if the reservoir can be accessed. For the moment, it helps answer questions about the geological history of the planet... (MORE - details, no ads)
PAPER: http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2409983121
Are Andromeda and the Milky Way Doomed to Collide? Maybe Not
https://www.universetoday.com/168094/are...maybe-not/
EXCERPTS: Scientists discovered the Andromeda galaxy, known as M31, hundreds of years ago, and around a century ago, we realized that it had negative radial velocity toward the Milky Way. In other words, eventually, the two galaxies would merge spectacularly. That has been common knowledge for astronomers since then, but is it really true?
A new paper from researchers at the University of Helsinki looks at several confounding factors, including the gravitational influence of other galaxies in our local group, and finds only a 50% chance that the Milky Way will merge with the Andromeda galaxy in the next 10 billion years.
[...] Further confounding that dynamic is the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is either the second or third closest galaxy to our own at a distance of only 163,000 light years. This is slightly larger than the Milky Way’s diameter, at 105,700. It also houses around 20 billion stars, so while it’s even less massive than M33, it still exerts a hefty gravitational pull.
The authors accounted for the gravitational pull of both of those other galaxies in their calculations of the paths of the Milky Way and Andromeda over the next few billion years. They found that the complicated dance of astronomical giants could potentially result in a scenario where the two galaxies don’t merge. However, there was another significant factor in their calculations: uncertainty... (MORE - missing details)
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1053948
INTRO: Using seismic activity to probe the interior of Mars, geophysicists have found evidence for a large underground reservoir of liquid water — enough to fill oceans on the planet's surface.
The data from NASA's Insight lander allowed the scientists to estimate that the amount of groundwater could cover the entire planet to a depth of between 1 and 2 kilometers, or about a mile.
While that’s good news for those tracking the fate of water on the planet after its oceans disappeared more than 3 billion years ago, the reservoir won't be of much use to anyone trying to tap into it to supply a future Mars colony. It's located in tiny cracks and pores in rock in the middle of the Martian crust, between 11.5 and 20 kilometers below the surface. Even on Earth, drilling a hole a kilometer deep is a challenge.
The finding does pinpoint another promising place to look for life on Mars, however, if the reservoir can be accessed. For the moment, it helps answer questions about the geological history of the planet... (MORE - details, no ads)
PAPER: http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2409983121
Are Andromeda and the Milky Way Doomed to Collide? Maybe Not
https://www.universetoday.com/168094/are...maybe-not/
EXCERPTS: Scientists discovered the Andromeda galaxy, known as M31, hundreds of years ago, and around a century ago, we realized that it had negative radial velocity toward the Milky Way. In other words, eventually, the two galaxies would merge spectacularly. That has been common knowledge for astronomers since then, but is it really true?
A new paper from researchers at the University of Helsinki looks at several confounding factors, including the gravitational influence of other galaxies in our local group, and finds only a 50% chance that the Milky Way will merge with the Andromeda galaxy in the next 10 billion years.
[...] Further confounding that dynamic is the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is either the second or third closest galaxy to our own at a distance of only 163,000 light years. This is slightly larger than the Milky Way’s diameter, at 105,700. It also houses around 20 billion stars, so while it’s even less massive than M33, it still exerts a hefty gravitational pull.
The authors accounted for the gravitational pull of both of those other galaxies in their calculations of the paths of the Milky Way and Andromeda over the next few billion years. They found that the complicated dance of astronomical giants could potentially result in a scenario where the two galaxies don’t merge. However, there was another significant factor in their calculations: uncertainty... (MORE - missing details)