DescentBB

Well (at the risk of sounding phallic), size is relevant to composition... if the atmosphere is thinner more UV rays will reach the surface of the planet, converting necessary O₂ (diatomic oxygen molecules) to O₃ (unstable ozone molecules), not to mention toast your skin faster than you can say "melanoma".

How about we nuke mars out of existance, and slingshot all the peces around venis till venis moves near earths orbit, then terraform venis.

About as pratical.

-Krom

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Arial" size="3">Originally posted by Krom:
<b> How about we nuke mars out of existance, and slingshot all the peces around venis till venis< moves near earths orbit, then terraform venis.

About as pratical.

-Krom</b></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Someone a little too smashed?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Arial" size="3">Originally posted by DCrazy:
phallic</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

hihihihi, dcrazy said "phallic!"

Sorry... I couldn't help it. I know you're right but I just gotta test out my new seal

hahahahah

You people are nerds!

D, regardless of what you stated, my statement still holds. You need that much energy to completely escape the gravitational field.

You need the escape velocity if you administer all the neccessary (kinetic) energy to escape at one point: lauch point.
This means that even if you go up slowly, because of evaporation or whatever, you still require the same amount of energy for the same mass to escape.
If you shoot something in the air, it starts with kinetic energy and will convert it to potential energy. Gasses still have to build up the same potential energy to break free, because the gravitational field is the same.

And Tricord, the incoming solar wind provides that energy.

But look - here's a new picture from Mars - and we can surmise from this picture - that Mars is doomed! Doomed I say - DOOMED!

<a href="http://www.joked.com/content/2004/Jan20 ... 1.jpg">New Mars-is-Doomed pic<a>

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Arial" size="3">Originally posted by Mobius:
And Tricord, the incoming solar wind provides that energy.</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Solar wind has that much power?

One assumes that if the atmosphere on Mars was once dense enough to support liquid water - even if only for a geologically brief period (half a billion years?) - then the atmosphere went somewhere.

Given that geologic processes are unlikely to drop atmospheric pressure from a maximum of 600 Millibars (or so - it probably never was as dense as Earth average of 1013 millibars) to the extant 5 millibars - the only explanation is that the Sun has ripped the atmosphere right off the planet.

Because Mars is much smaller than earth, it radiates heat far more quickly - the surface-area-to-body-volume ratio is orders of magnitude higher than for Earth. So Mars will have formed a solid crust far earlier than Earth did, and thus the ecolution of the surface predated Earth's own "solid surface" phase.

Because Mars cooled faster, its interior (it is surmised) contained less molten, spinning iron to create a magnetic field.

The core slowed, or cooled faster than on Earth, so the magnetic field dissipated a long time ago. The magnetic field is what shields the Earth from enormous quantities of heavy radiation (in conjunction with the atmosphere.

So, it's a negative feedback loop once the magnetic field decays: The magnetic field no longer protects the atmosphere and so the solar wind rips at it - travelling at a significant proportion of C, thus depleting the atmosphere. These forces, combined with the inverse-square law for gravity, coupled with 3 Billion years (say) is more than enough time for the atmosphere to appear as it is today.

In order for Mars to be made shirt-sleeve - we'd have to create an atmosphere much deeper than Earths (Lower gravity means less dense air at the same volume of air).

Ten million years is a short period of time geologically - and yeah - we could do build Mars up into a high-density atmosphere - and who knows, maybe a 250 km thick atmosphere might last for a billion years - but the fact remains, Mars, in its current state is incapable of retaining a thick atmosphere.

Neither, it's worth noting, is Earth. The Earth loses a lot of air every single day. Fortunately, there are enough volcanoes and thermal vents on Earth to maintain the pressure.

The same thing happens at the "fuzzy edges" of a black hole, at the Event Horizon. The border of the event horizon shrinks and grows slightly (It's "fuzzy"!) which allows particles INSIDE the blackhole, to escape. This, despite the fact that the escape velocity at the Event Horizon exceeds the speed of light!

No extra energy is required to explain the escape of these molecules.

This is "Hawking Radiation" which says that ALL mass acquired by a black hole is eventually radiated from it. The theory says Quantuum black holes can't exist - or more precisely, they'd "evaporate" due to Hawking Radiation in picoseconds.

Black Holes which cease gaining mass are always losing mass due to this Hawking Radiation. Slowly though. Galactic-core sized black holes will take longer than the life time of the universe to evaporate. So, when the "heat death" is in its final throes (assuming we don't rescue the universe from that fate!) probably the only source of energy in the universe will be Hawking Radiation.