Big week for the 4th rock from the Sun. It’s time for the Red Planet’s spotlight! Check out the detail after the break!
First, and most importantly to the Gabbing Geek crew, Ridley Scott’s science faction adaptation of the Martian, starring Matt Damon, opens this week in theaters everywhere. The folks in the Gabbing Geek bullpen have been crossing their fingers on this one for a while because we LOVED the book. The concern was that Scott has been delivering stinkers for nearly a decade but early Rotten Tomato numbers indicate a smashing success in the low to mid 90’s!
The second big news, timed to help the movie now doubt, was NASA’s announcement that our probes (giggity) detected actual flowing water on Mars! CNN has better science reporters than Gabbing Geek (only slightly, only slightly..), so let’s ask them what happened,
Potentially life-giving water still flows across the ancient surface of Mars from time to time, NASA scientists said Monday in revealing a potential breakthrough in both the search for life beyond Earth and human hopes to one day travel there.
While the discovery doesn’t by itself offer evidence of life on Mars, either past or present, it does boost hopes that the harsh landscape still offers some refuge for microbes to cling to existence.
“The existence of liquid water, even if it is super salty briny water, gives the possibility that if there’s life on Mars, that we have a way to describe how it might survive,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA.
Wow. That really advances humanity’s likelihood of colonizing beyond our home planet. Water on the planet means less supplies and the ability to create oxygen (just ask Matt Damon’s character in the movie!)
So, now that we are ready, let’s start thinking about what the colonization of Mars would look like. Again, we are Gabbing Geek, so we choose to explain this in Infographic form! Enjoy!
Gabbing Geek 