Possible 2014 comet impact to Mars could make it habitable.

[Robert Clark]

Speculation here that such an impact could make Mars habitable:

Rush to Mars: Comet impact could make Red Planet inhabitable.
Published time: February 28, 2013 16:32
http://rt.com/news/mars-comet-tito-flyby-601/


Bob Clark

[Robert Clark]

On Mar 5, 11:45 am, David Spain <nos...@127.0.0.1> wrote:
> Cross-posts elided...

>
> On 3/5/2013 11:31 AM, Robert Clark wrote:
>
> > Speculation here that such an impact could make Mars habitable:
>

> Title says otherwise?

>
> > Rush to Mars: Comet impact could make Red Planet inhabitable.
> > Published time: February 28, 2013 16:32
> >http://rt.com/news/mars-comet-tito-flyby-601/
>

> I think we should hope for a miss. Geologic time scales for climate
> change on Mars to complete a 'terraform' would not be a boon for human
> exploration.
>

Habitable and inhabitable are used interchangeably, like flammable
and inflammable. The opposite term is uninhabitable.

Bob Clark

[kashmir...@gmail.com]

wHACK___)OOU

[John F. Eldredge]

You would need thousands of comets' worth of gas to make Mars' atmosphere
dense enough for human life, plus you would probably have to introduce
some sort of genetically-engineered plant to release free oxygen, then
wait a long time.

--
John F. Eldredge -- jo...@jfeldredge.com
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly
is better than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria

[Orval Fairbairn]

In article <aq0urs...@mid.individual.net>,

"John F. Eldredge" <jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 05 Mar 2013 08:31:02 -0800, Robert Clark wrote:
>
> > Speculation here that such an impact could make Mars habitable:
> >
> > Rush to Mars: Comet impact could make Red Planet inhabitable. Published
> > time: February 28, 2013 16:32
> > http://rt.com/news/mars-comet-tito-flyby-601/
> >
> >
> > Bob Clark
>
> You would need thousands of comets' worth of gas to make Mars' atmosphere
> dense enough for human life, plus you would probably have to introduce
> some sort of genetically-engineered plant to release free oxygen, then
> wait a long time.

That's a pretty good assessment.

[bob haller]

On Mar 9, 8:37 pm, Orval Fairbairn <orfairba...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> In article <aq0ursF4sk...@mid.individual.net>,

if theres enough water under the mars surface it could be electrically
turned into oxygen and hydrogen to provide breathable air. or
genetically engineer some lichen that would produce air.

[Don M]

Along these lines. Has anyone else wondered if perhaps we've vastly underestimated the frequency of major impacts in the solar system? I'm less than fifty, and I've seen a comet hit Jupiter, and now we're going to see a comet nearly hit Mars, this is the sort of thing that makes me a bit nervous about our own position in the cosmic shooting gallery.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

Well, we've got 10k years of recorded history more or less, and no
significant impacts in that time. (had there been, history would be
different)

--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com

[Greg Goss]

Don M <don.mid...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Along these lines. Has anyone else wondered if perhaps we've vastly underestimated the frequency of major impacts in the solar system? I'm less than fifty, and I've seen a comet hit Jupiter, and now we're going to see a comet nearly hit Mars, this is the sort of thing that makes me a bit nervous about our own position in the cosmic shooting gallery.

I've been fascinated by claims that a number of close cometary passes,
perhaps by a major comet that degenerated into Encke, were responsible
for the mythology of comets preceding disaster. Dropping a bunch of
Tunguska sized blasts into far areas of the planet would cause severe
winters without leaving much record of their passage for a more
scientific era.

http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/phaeth.html
http://www.szoraster.com/Science/Exodus%20to%20Arthur.htm
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/ce070799.html


--
I used to own a mind like a steel trap.
Perhaps if I'd specified a brass one, it
wouldn't have rusted like this.

[alie...@gmail.com]

On Apr 15, 6:35 pm, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:

> Don M <don.middend...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >Along these lines. Has anyone else wondered if perhaps we've vastly
> > underestimated the frequency of major impacts in the solar system? I'm less
> > than fifty, and I've seen a comet hit Jupiter, and now we're going to see a comet
> > nearly hit Mars, this is the sort of thing that makes me a bit nervous about our
> > own position in the cosmic shooting gallery.
>
> I've been fascinated by claims that a number of close cometary passes,
> perhaps by a major comet that degenerated into Encke, were responsible
> for the mythology of comets preceding disaster.  Dropping a bunch of
> Tunguska sized blasts into far areas of the planet would cause severe
> winters without leaving much record of their passage for a more
> scientific era.

Makes a lot of sense to me, except I don't see how they'd be
selective for one of the traditional Bad Things comets supposedly
presage, the death of a king.

> http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/phaeth.html
> http://www.szoraster.com/Science/Exodus%20to%20Arthur.htm
> http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/ce070799.html

Kewl. I knew about _Exodus to Arthur_ but not the other references.


Mark L. Fergerson

[Greg Goss]

"nu...@bid.nes" <alie...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/phaeth.html
>> http://www.szoraster.com/Science/Exodus%20to%20Arthur.htm
>> http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/ce070799.html
>
> Kewl. I knew about _Exodus to Arthur_ but not the other references.

I've always been interested in "Velikovskianism" - the idea that
external disasters have a lot to do with history, and that records of
such disasters could well be less coherent than history looks like
from a high school textbook.

Over time, V himself proved to be a flake, and his Venus explanation
was absurd, but the idea of catastrophism remained interesting.

Back in the early days of the web, I had a collection of links, of
which Phaethon's Ride was only the third or fourth most interesting.
By 2005, most of them were dead.

More recently, I read a nunmber of sites about possible megatsunami
origins for coastal "chevron dunes", notably from
http://tsun.sscc.ru/hiwg/chevrons.htm ("Holocene Impact Working
Group") Their introduction page is at
http://tsun.sscc.ru/hiwg/purpose.htm