Oddities, curiousities and strangness in history

exactly, whos controlling it? aliens is what.

Mars Rover

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/11/us-space-mars-idUSBRE85A15I20120611

Heres hoping it gets there as the results could be qwquite intresting.
Never understood why they dont fire somethng off to go look at Cydonia. I mean ok its almost certainly nothing but an area of unusual geographic formations but surely even pofaced scientists would want to have a look and find out?

whats Cydonia?

Cydonia is an area on Mars which is a concentration of unusual rock formations, among them the 'face on Mars'. According to some there is also evidence of pyramids and other structures.
Scientists say load of nonsesne, just rocks, outcrops and light and shadow, like seeing shapes in clouds.
But you'd think they'd go look and sort it out once and for all.

Maybe scientists have better things to do with their time (and taxpayer's money) than cater to conspiracy theorists who will disregard the results if they don't like them, anyway.

EDIT: To be a bit less snarky, Mars rovers cost hundreds of millions of dollars a pop. Conversely, pointing a telescope at Mars (which is conveniently close to Earth, after all) is pretty cheap. If scientists have commented on this Cydonia region then I would expect they've at least done that. Between telescopes and the satellites we already have orbiting Mars I doubt there are any undiscovered pyramids hiding on the surface.

EDIT2: Indeed they have looked at it already. We've gotten some pretty good pictures of the alleged pyramids and they look an awful lot like mountains to me.

Thats not the point Eldo- look at it this way we send Rovers to Mars to find out more about it- we take samples ect and analysis stuff. So assuming (and I think like you-mountains) Cydonia is just a place of unusual natural formations surely thats more than intresting enough on its own to go there and see?

It depends on what else scientists are researching on Mars. Personally I'm far more interested in the possibility that there are or were microorganisms that lived on Mars, or the possibility that there is ice or water on Mars. We can only send so many rovers to Mars with the money that is available. Personally, I place Cydonia pretty far down on the list of priorities unless there is something more than outdated alien theories to suggest that there is something extraordinary there. Unusual natural formations are nice, but we have rocks that look like faces on Earth too and they don't represent any potential scientific breakthroughs.

I'm not trying to be a buzzkill, I just don't think this seems worth spending years and hundreds of millions of dollars on. *shrug*

It seems to be a geaoligically intresting area. Why aret here so many unusual formations there? Was it volcanic? Water erosion?
It seems a more intresting spot than the one the current lander is on. And lets face it 'Mission to the Face on Mars' is free publicity and publicity means money. You'd think they would want to capture the public imagination too.

Your publicity point is well taken. I don't really know what the current agenda for Mars missions is, but drumming up public support for the space program would certainly be nice. Unfortunately, popular support for the space program in America has never been terribly high (even during the height of the Space Race) and especially in the current economy NASA does not get a lot of attention. If such a mission could get more interest in space and support for funding then I agree that it would be a success, though I feel like it would take something really exceptional to arouse that kind of interest (in America, anyway; I can't speak to other countries).

I'm not sure, but I doubt 'cydonia' has anything interesting in it except for mountains that look interesting at the correct sun/mars/earth relative angles. Whoopy-di-doo.

The lander sites were chosen by people who have a deep background in studying mars, with the intent of maximum scientific payoff, though if memory serves the first site was chosen in part because it was flat enough to help with an uneventful landing. I don't have time to look into the details and regurgitate, but before complaining about the lander placement, I'd suggest doing research on why they are where they are. As Eldo said, it's mainly to answer questions about the history behind Martian water and the possibilities of life, as well as geological history.

But no one cares Halfwise- and if people dont care tax dollars dry up, private investment falls. Nobody goes anywhere. This stuff costs and given earth as a model to look at it wouldnt really matter where you put a probe, even if all the life was gone, it would always be interesting and yield new information. I dont see why Mars is any different. So why not go somewhere people have heard of?

I think the suspicion is that life on mars was tenuous at best, and very long ago with evidence degraded under meteorite bombardment, so have to maximize the potential. But I think if there was any suspicion the Mars mission was pandering to the public, the result would be much worse than apathy.

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/fresh-excavations-reveal-more-warriors/story-e6frfku0-1226393766774?from=public_rss

Isnt there more probability of life existing on Europa anyway, or is it another moon? The one under the huge ice layer

We are in real rouble Chris when the appointed day comes and they all spring back to life!


Europa is a very interestng moon indeed Mrs Figg, ben awhile since I checked this stuff out but I believe you are correct about the water under the ice.

I wonder if they will send a probe to Europa and that other moon, is it Triton? and I think there is also a weird pink moon with huge geisers of methane or something equally odd, is it Calisto? its a while since I watched Discovery Channel.

I'm pretty sure the European Space Agency has plans to send a probe to the moons of Jupiter but it's years away from launch.

Yeah and its Europe so it will either end up in the ocean or pluto.

Maybe NASA should send an expedition to discover if there is intelligent life in Europe!

{{{ Just kidding ... my sense of humor is a bit off-kilter today. }}}

We are good at some things Eldo, however it turns out firing stuff into space is not one of them. (Well not if you want it to go where its supposed to).
And the British Sapce Program looks exactly like their stuff was cobbled together in someones shed-which usually it was.

hey men tinkering about in sheds is what makes us inventive.

Inventive yes, we still come up with stuff in sheds other succesful space projects use, just our own attempts are lucky to get off the ground or hit the right planet.

I think thats part of our charm, the rueful grin as 1000 hours of tinkering and tin foil goes speeding gleefully in the wrong direction.

Trademarks - 2 of interest - who related and tolkien too!

http://io9.com/5919000/six-strange-cases-of-science-fiction-trademarks