Sunday, August 19, 2012

Meanwhile, on Mars...


Now that Curiosity's 'brain transplant' has been completed, and all is well, it is preparing to try out its laser rock-zapper on a nearby rock, as a test of the system, and then it will be trying a short drive, to confirm it's OK.

I'm sure we're all counting on this rover to confirm our suspicions that early Mars was much like early Earth, until it met with a cosmic catastrophe which changed it forever, and left it as it is now. The sad part of that story is that we can't restore it to its former condition no matter how we wish.

While we're thinking of such things, perhaps I ought to remind us that in our solar system, over 98% of the whole thing is contained within the mass of the Sun, and all the rest of it, all our flying parts, make up less than about one and a half percent of the total mass of the system. And as we know, the smaller terrestrial planets in the inner orbits are rather insignificant compared to the bigger gas giants further out beyond the ecosphere. We tend not to think of that because we're in the habit of thinking of our Earth as being practically the center of our own personal universe. But of course, in reality, it isn't. It's just one tiny speck flying around a huge ball of superheated gases forming a vast nuclear reactor which we call the Sun. 

And the fact that one of those tiny specks flying around that huge ball of fire once got hit and virtually destroyed by another flying object from deep space shouldn't really surprise us. 

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