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  Home arrow News arrow News from Space arrow silica valley; bad idea pt. 3

 
silica valley; bad idea pt. 3 | Print |  E-mail
Written by staff   
Wednesday, 23 May 2007

silica valley

While at this point it’s been pretty well established that there was once plentiful liquid water on Mars, the evidence just keeps rolling in on little tiny rover wheels.

After analyzing a brightly-colored trough inadvertently dug by one of Spirit’s malfunctioning wheels, scientists discivered that the soil there was about 90% silica, an unprecedented concentration which they believe was likely facilitated by the presence of water.

According to NASA, one possible origin for the silica could have been interaction of soil with acid vapors produced by volcanic activity in the presence of water. Another could have been from water in a hot spring environment.

bad idea pt. 3

Sure, after Celestis launched the ashes of more than 200 people (among them Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper and Star Trek actor James Doohan) into sub-orbital space on April 28, they had some trouble finding them again after the cannister had crashed back to Earth. It took them almost three weeks, in fact. But they found them eventually, according to a May 18 report on space.com, and that’s the important thing, right?

No, not really. We hope this debacle puts an end to the business of shooting people’s ashes into space, but we expect we’re wrong.
 

 
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