Here's another headline where NASA is dragged through the mud for cheap Mars wise cracks Water that once flowed across the surface of Mars caused the formation of mud cracks that were spotted by NASA's Curiosity rover, scientists have confirmed. The fractures were discovered in 2017 while the nuclear-powered robot was busy snapping away pictures of the Gale Crater – an area believed to be a 3.5-billion-year-old …
"I just wonder how mud on supposedly exposed rock has managed to survive 3.5 billion years of wind erosion? Does the article mention anything about that kind of thing?"
It's not mud any more, but rather mudstone; essentially sandstone but with smaller particles. The idea is basically that it used to be mud at the bottom of a lake, but formed a sedimentary rock through the same processes that occur on Earth. So don't think of it as mud surviving billions of years of exposure, but rather a rock that we can look at and figure out what it used to be a few billion years ago.
It's a Thing on Mars. The atmosphere may be thin, but there's serious sandstorms in season, and settling sand and dust did get the old Rovers into a spot of bother. Until the wind helped out..
But the simple answer of how this bit of rock has survived so long is plain to see in the original picture: sand. If there's sand piled up on top of it, erosion doesn't happen.. And you can see in the original that the neighbour to the left is a *lot* worse for wear.
It looks like this patch has been blown clean "recently" so that any erosion is minimal. There's even chance that when you'd go look for it now, you can't find it because it'll have been covered up with sand again.
Hey, man. You hear NASA just figured out something about our neighboring planet that's been not only unknown but impossible to have been known since before homo sapiens branched off from the evolutionary tree of apes?
Cool. What was it?
I don't fully understand, not being a scientist, but the gist is that ancient water in a river on the barren planet of Mars once flowed across an area that now shows similar properties to dry riverbeds on Earth, where the mud crac....
Wait, did you say mud?
Uhh...yes.
Stop right there. I've got my headline. No more information necessary.
But, dude, we work for a major publication. Shouldn't we know a little more before writing the headline? Especially since that's all most people read?
Nah, screw the readers. They won't get it as is, and we fired the science editor a few weeks ago.
You are a disgrace to journalism.
Yeah, but my click commission is buying margaritas tonight.
Okay. Fuck science. Write it up so we can get out of here.
Is that why we have a relatively large number of articles (for a nominally IT specific publication) about planets, stars, black holes etc? Not complaining - it is the wide range of interesting articles, the witty writing style and intelligent commentards (YMMV) which brings me back to the Register.
Is that why we have a relatively large number of articles (for a nominally IT specific publication) about planets, stars, black holes etc?
The IT field has a lot of sci-fi geeks, myself included. And including people like the inventor of the mobile phone, etc.
http://www.destination-innovation.com/how-startrek-inspired-an-innovation-your-cell-phone/
The final frontier is of as much interest to us as celeb gossip apparently is to "normal" users.
@Not also known:
Personally, I've been in IT for over 30 years, I have part of an engineering degree, part of a physics degree and I'm currently trying out international law. I play with fractals for fun, read *everything* and like scuba diving, I'm a pretty decent cook. It really isn't like we're all *just* computer techies. And in general, the people who are usually *good* at something, generally have other interests outside of their field.
Oddly, I've had several folks along the way assume the only thing I knew was computers. Until they got to try my cooking.
Hi @Alistair and @Peter2
I think my comment may have been slightly badly worded. The Register's tag line is "Biting the hand that feeds IT" so it is easy to imagine that this site's purpose is as an IT news source and would generally attract IT types. Luckily the site carries more articles than just IT and is the better for doing so. The wide range of knowledge from writers / commentards ranging from obsolete communication protocols through to fighter jet command software makes this a truely fascinating site to visit. Icon for any distress my comment may have caused :-)
Back to my original post, what I was meant to be asking was if the presence of an astrophysicist on the writing team was a reason for the large number of space related articles?
Jalmos , its taken me some time to work out what the hell you're talking about , but after re-reading the article , and being none the wiser , then reading your post (again ) , then going back to the article and reading the headline , I gather you are insinuating a kind of click-bait false headline type scenario.
Then theres some further ranting about content - im not sure if you're pleased there is an actual science article behind the headline or not.
I further deduce from all this:
You! Have! No! Idea! About! El! Reg! Article! Headline! Convention!
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