ALIEN BODY FOUND ON MARS: Curiosity rover snaps extraterrestrial NASA's Curiosity rover has stumbled across a massive iron meteorite half buried in the sands of Mars – an object the US space agency has dubbed Lebanon. The Lebanon meteorite found by Curiosity The Lebanon meteorite found by Curiosity The two-metre-wide rock was discovered by the Martian robot on May 25. It was …
I saw the announcement and spiffed up photo on http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ this morning. Its now item 2 of 6 on the Whats New list.
If you go to Mission:Where is Curiosity and look at the map for day 637 you can see where the meteorite was found.
To see the photos taken by Curiosity, go to Multimedia|Raw Images and look at those taken on day 637 by the Navcams and day 640 by ChemCam and Mastcam.
Some rocks, that might be found on Mars, could have originated from early Earth especially during the formation of Luna and similar violent activities. So, they may be extraterrestrial now, but they didn't used to be. If these are ever identified, I propose that they be called ex-terrestrial rocks.
The parent word terrestrial, and grandparent terra also refer to land generically as well as planet Earth.
eg: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrae_on_Mars
So while you're right, I'd assert that "extraterrestrial" has come to mean specifically outside our planet only because the scope of human experience and by extension, thinking, is so narrow. If humans ever come to inhabit multiple planets I doubt we'd refer our Martian cousins as extraterrestrials. Extratellurians would be more appropriate.
Terrestrial means Earth-like, hence there are four terrestrial planets in the solar system - Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.
"No matter how many of these sort of articles I read, I never cease to be amazed that I'm looking at photos taken on another f-ing planet!"
Yes, sir! For really amazing images from *many* other planets, see the Cassini collection of images from around Saturn. 17 years from launch, ten years orbiting the planet and it still produces surprisingly lovely stuff.
Oh, and have you noticed: We're in the frakken *21st* *CENTURY*!?
That *still* gets to me.
==-
> I never cease to be amazed that I'm looking at photos taken on another f-ing planet!
I still feel that way every time I see an Apollo photo of the grey dirt and boulders. THAT'S THE *MOON* — the one in the sky, which is the same colour grey!
As far as the 21st-century, yes I can't get over that, either. We're in The Future, and every single thing from the '64 World's Fair came true.
It's like The Jetsons, except with unlimited porn substituted for flying cars.
-faye kane ♀ girl brain
sexiest astrophysicist you'll ever see naked
Ye that's EXACTLY what I thought, what is this Oblivion??? Might need some leather strips though for the sword, perhaps if they could find a Dwarven strut or two they could use the iron to make some Dwarven armour when they get their smithing to level 30... Man this Skooma is good stuff!
Question for *proper" boffins (I'm just a dilettante) - if we created a machine that liberated oxygen and nitrogen and pumped them into the Martian air to seed a "new" atmosphere - would the solar winds just carry it away into space again because Mars does not have a magnetic field? Just wondering how easy this planet seeding malarcky actually is.
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