NASA’s Ingenious Mars Rover Fix // Special Earth // Space LEGO from ESA

[@poppedweasel]

Lego regolith? Legolith. We should send up James May to build the first outpost. He has experience in this field.

[@frasercain]

Oh, of course that's the term.

[@scottdorfler2551]

Perfect! 😂

[@sjsomething4936]

The brilliant and creative adaptations to malfunctioning space equipment never fails to impress the heck outta me!

[@firstjayjay]

As a mold designer at LEGO, I have to say, this is pretty damn cool 👍👍

[@jblob5764]

Ah, so now i finally have someone i can blame directly for those pointy little booby traps 😂

[@WagonLoads]

I work in electronics and would like lego parts that could hold my PCBs and breadboards relative to each other...

[@richard--s]

But it's not Lego. Only bricks made by Lego are allowed to be called Lego. All right, they have an official cooperation. That's why they can call it Lego.

[@mrbaab5932]

Did you design the Black mold in California?

[@firstjayjay]

@@mrbaab5932 no. Molds do not have names

[@FlashGeiger]

I wonder if we have plate tectonics because of the early collision that knocked off a chunk of our crust making the moon. That would leave a crust with different thickness in different areas, promoting the convection below that energizes tectonics.

[@olliverklozov2789]

What crust? The entire planet(s) was made molten.

[@EShirako]

@@olliverklozov2789 Right, but think about "The Big Impactor Hypothesis" which explains the moon. The Earth WAS cooling, had been solidifying...and then Theia came dropping in to spoil the party. I have left a bigger comment explaining why I think Theia was the reason it all started up. Theia was a planet, so it had a radioactive core like Earth, so when that sank, magma got 'stirred up', and so many hundreds-of-mega-tons of magma being on the move means it won't exactly STOP easily either. So I think Theia changed us from 'a cooling ball of rock' to 'a half-melted planet with a bigger radioactive core because it tossed the moon's worth of mass (or more) into space too', and that with magma being squished and flowed this way and that and swirling up and down from density differences... I suppose you should look for my separate comment for more details if you care to know more! This 'blurb' might help explain very-in-general, though. But, to be clear, Theia hit us as the Earth was cooling, so it DID have a crust, much like Venus does now. Instead of staying stable, though, Theia made a mess and stirred up the world. It had HAD a crust, even if likely not as thick as it is nowadays, and then Theia dropped in and 'made a mess of things'. And now we're here! \o/

[@kage769]

I love the idea of a spacecraft recovery series, I'd watch that.

[@ericv738]

That owl knew you were the real potential threat

[@sjsomething4936]

“Don’t trust the bald Canadian” - signed, another bald Canadian 😂

[@jukkamommo6252]

The owl thought you will eat him😀

[@davidhanna8470]

Juicy. We need a juicy planet.

[@pluto9000]

🍑

[@billionsandbillionsofstars]

Is there anything NASA and its engineers can’t do? Bravo engineers and scientists!😊

[@ronniecollum8794]

oh yea - impress me , recover our tax money . sell the ISS to china , price tag 100 trillion dollars

[@j.campbell4497]

Actually, I think plate tectonics kicked off much earlier than 600 million years ago. The general consensus among geologist's is somewhere around 3.2 billion years ago.

[@ericfielding2540]

Yes, plate tectonics was operating on Earth long before 600 million years ago.

[@astrolad293]

Check out Geo Girl. She talks about how the formation and breakup of supercontinents have affected life. Her latest video as of today is on this topic. (I haven't watched it yet. Saving it for later today.)

[@mrbaab5932]

​@@astrolad293I thought it was a Hate Crime to call adult women 'girl'.

[@astrolad293]

@@mrbaab5932 Interesting question. Can you commit a hate crime against yourself?

[@allangibson8494]

The question is whether there were continuous plates covered the planet…

[@bobwoolley1549]

When you started talking about lunar swirls, I could have sworn you said "lunar squirrels." I was disappointed at what it turned out to be. You have to admit, a piece about lunar squirrels would get 100% of the vote for coolest story of the week.

[@GoCoyote]

Damn lying lunar squirrels!

[@davidhuber6251]

I think "sneaker zoom" was the term you were looking for. As always, wonderful coverage of the universe about us. Thank you for that.

[@frasercain]

Yeah, that's the term.

[@davidhanna8470]

Great, just effing great, now i wi be stepping on moon lego's at night on tbe way to the john.

[@frasercain]

They're inevitable.

[@spacelemur7955]

It's about time some popular science channel on YT began talking about plate tectonics and abiogenesis. This idea has been kicking around a while and deserves a more thorough presentation.

[@gl15col]

Never forget, we only got pretty sure proof there were exoplanets in 1992. That always blows my mind, and shows how fast knowledge grew after that first discovery.

[@JD-mm4ub]

Love Space Bites!

[@The-KP]

@@JD-mm4ub Underrated!

[@davesatxify]

That proto star photo is awesome

[@olorin4317]

Speculative astrogeology and pretty protostars make for some superb space bites.

[@iamnickdavis]

Pretty excited for the rover and can't wait to see flight 5!

[@Spherical_Cow]

Without plate tectonics, there are no long-term (over hundreds of millions of years) sustainable continents: all seamounts would erode and/or subside back to below sea level, and so there wouldn't be any life adapted to dry land. It's a somewhat popular (and plausible) hypothesis that life confined entirely to ocean environments would never achieve the levels of complexity required to cope with much more challenging and variable conditions on dry land. Or at least, it would evolve much more slowly because its environment is so much more stable and less varied.

[@EShirako]

As to why we have plate tectonics and other planets don't seem to...the 'cooling planets' would have cooled steadily overall, self-sorting by density in a slow and gradual fashion, nothing big upsetting things, and the hot core would simply 'still be hot but nothing special' was going on to make things 'move' for the most part. My own hypothesis is that Theia is responsible for the Moon AND plate tectonics. When Theia hit it added (first, in my own hypothesis as to how Earth is different from average) Theia's high-density radioactive core to ours, while splashing a big 'moon-sized and more' dollop of lighter material that had settled up into the outer 'generic crust that had been cooling smoothly until then'. So Theia melted a huge section of our crust (but not UNIFORMLY heating ALL of it) by dropping in on us with a "Mars-sized" planet or whatever. Anything on the crust that didn't melt surely had fractures, but also that would have wildly-differentiated the density of material on the various sides of the planet. Theia's sinking radioactive core (dense materials settling lowest in general) added to our own core eventually, but also displaced some insane number of mega-tons of magma on its way down there, disrupting ALL the layers, and effectively "Stirring the magma-milkshake" called the still-cooling Earth, making our core and mantle all "Messy and varied in density". As one thing settled another rose, heat moved, impactor-fractured crust buckled from underneath as volcanic gasses built up, then...bloop, magma "pours" upward, and then a continental-plate began to be born. The 'sorting and sinking' of Theia's remnants, and likely random huge chunks falling back from "didn't manage to hit the moon" orbits broke other trying-to-cool sections or whatever, making more big fractures, or pulverizing zones (maybe even causing Hot Spots?), or at a minimum, once again adding denser, cooler material to the hot Earth and making THAT new material also try to sink into the core or whatever-layer its material might be self-sorting to from density, but that still displaces lighter, hotter core magma, stirs things up, moves the 'iron core' by proxy of stirring above it...and the cycle of "sorting by density, heat upwellings, and occasional fractures as the 'magma ocean' ebbs and flows and volcanically-bubbles under the 'chips' of continental-crust that are floating merrily along on top of the mantle adds new continental breaches or upwellings or subsidence or whatever" all gets moving from that stirring, sinking, swirling, unequally-heated mess... So I think that "Theia, and especially its share of radioactive core applied to our sorta-cooling Earth" is what set the stage, or maybe even truly began, the plate tectonics flows. Maybe the crust didn't flow at first until the chaos in the magma 'settled into stable chaos'...somewhat like Mandelbrot orbits, where the fractals are calculated around a 'point' but with the right variables it makes loops and whirls and circles...unlike Pure Math, magma DGAF and crushed the tiny eddies over time, turning it all into big swirls for maximum 'dynamic-stability' as other magma ebbed and flowed 'around/along' that magma. As the flows self-sorted and optimized, eventually (or immediately? Dunno) the continental plates began their break-up and dance, which continues to this day. Relatedly, I suspect that 'hot spots' are remainders of the Theia impactor (or other VERY massive, high-density impact objects, even meteors or whatever) where the piercing to the core 'splashed back upwards' enough to raise super-hot material, which since it's hotter and lighter and likely feeds from closer to the core-layer of the planet, the hot 'plume' of a hot spot remains viable for a long, LONG time, and maybe forever. It 'stirred' from a planet crashing into Earth...you'd need a LOT of resistance to fight that rising plume in any given spot. Which, I point out since this is my own hypothesis so far, if I'm right, then there's likely a hot-spot MUCH larger than all the others where the Theia Core sank down to our core, though my imagined 'super-hotspot' may have made a super-downwelling area where it's drawing anomalously-more material than most areas. The downwelling (caused by sinking-to-the-core momentum and splashed-planet-mantle flowing back into the crater), since it's from Theia, might well have a scope much larger than any hot-spot-upwelling that we've ever seen before, and it could just be much harder to notice. It may also have an upwelling that is much larger than any others since its core would have been piping-hot from radiation too, so as it sank and eventually 'merged into our core too' it would have been piping-hot and sticking out of the core until it merged fully into our own. There would likely be a large portion of the inner or outer core of our planet that has oddly-higher or lower density left from Theia, too, but that's a guess...depending on stirring and how it flows, uneven iron-core material may have stirred too much and have evened out in the core by this point. Anyway...so there's my random offering of seems-sensible-to-me Scientific Hypothesis in case any actual Science professionals want to look into the idea. I was silly and went into Computers, not geophysics or anything...still, here's my hypothesis about why we have plate tectonics but Venus doesn't seem to. Io might get 'taffy-pulled' enough to have some. Mars likely never had a chance to have enough heat for that long. But...maybe the only secret for how improbable it is is that a partly-cooled planet has to be hit by another PLANET so as to give it a larger, hotter core and 'stir the whole magma/core region up' and cause the cooling plates on top to shift around. And as my last point, which I admit I'm less sure on but still think may be the case...a 'tectonically-viable world' may need to have, or have tried to make, a moon of its own to toss off lighter material and make it so the 'Core' is that much hotter/closer to the surface in addition to JUST the melting from the impact. I'm not as sure on this point, but say I '60%' suspect this to be the case.

[@mrwolsy3696]

Lego will hopefully relinquish patents expressly for the lunar outpost construction, a much smaller 3d printer could be used then.

[@AenesidemusOZ]

Just switch to Duplo 😂

[@KurtQuad]

Excllent episode! A nice way to end work and start the weekend.

[@DavidTremblay]

Legos + space wins the day

[@PetraKann]

The earth’s tilt is technically not stationary. (It’s one of the Milankovitch cycles Quote: “Earth's axis is currently tilted 23.4 degrees, or about half way between its extremes, and this angle is very slowly decreasing in a cycle that spans about 41,000 years. It was last at its maximum tilt about 10,000 years ago and will reach its minimum tilt about 10,000 years from now.”

[@removechan10298]

I posited techtonics as the main governor of life - I tried to find the range of what would allow them to exist in the range they do - this is a very interesting thing to look at - also asteroids and volcano debris in oceans that can cause massive blooms of life when it does exist - who knows what effects that has on ability for oxygenation?

[@charlesreid9337]

No offense intended but your ideas or simply wrong. And what he stated here is based in ignorance. There are two possible ways life began on Earth. One or both happened. Either self-replicating chemicals came from space.. add or they occurred here. We know the precise mechanism due to brilliant research in chemistry. From that point what we call life was inevitable over a long enough time frame. Play tectonics buccaneers etc I had an effect on its development of course but they didn't play a key role and its existence. We also know how the atmosphere become oxygenated. It was due to microorganisms. The Earth developed a highly oxygenated atmosphere. Lylife used adapted and learned to use that oxygen does achieving a balance between oxygen production and use...

[@BIGREDDOG09]

I posit, the moral of the story is if it can happen once, the Universe is teeming with life.

[@airplayn]

@@BIGREDDOG09 So, where are they? Wow, what a paradox! ;-)

[@BIGREDDOG09]

@@airplayn agreed....that is the question!!!!! The wrong question, which I'm glad you didn't ask, is "are we alone?"...:D

[@TheBiggreenpig]

@@charlesreid9337 I totally agree. If plate tectonics is responsible for lots of oxygen, it would have been harmful to early Earth life. Without it, we might have large mobile plants that need not much oxygen. And eventually, if oxygen levels raise anyway, we would have life similar to Earth.

[@MistSoalar]

For space craft recovery, I like the the story of the first Hayabusa mission

[@Alfred-Neuman]

Why?

[@overtoke]

we need a couple more seismometers on mars

[@Prometheus-Unbound]

We seem to have more and more to thank the collision with Thera for - not least the Moon and plate tectonics. Current theories suggest both are a result of the impact and the embedded remains.

[@Yzyxdolorza]

So, yeah the Lego bricks are cute but we can also 3D print buildings... remotely...? 3D print Moon Base 1 ftw. 🤩

[@fritzelly7309]

This is a space news overload - great content

[@pgantioch8362]

Fraser, maybe you need to watch the fantastic videos of GEO GIRL. The exact time plate tectonics developed is unclear, but it’s closer to 3 B yrs ago. Wikipedia says 3.4 B yrs ago. 600 M isn’t even close.

[@ericfielding2540]

Maybe Fraser meant 600 million years after the Earth formation? Yes, plate tectonics in some form has been around for several billions of years on Earth.

[@terminusest5902]

Moon bricks have also been tested with simulated rammed regolith material. Rammed earth has been used heavily by the Chinese from ancient times for massive constructions. A bonding agent may also be added. Solar lenses could also be used for 3D printing. This exists' Sandbag structures are another option. Gabion baskets, like Hesco boxes, can use rocks and soil. With lighter construction than on Earth, could also be used. These could protect lighter portable structures. And no rust. Though I think many structures should use tunnels for the best protection with painted sealant. Manual working under ground, building structures, would be much easier in sealed tunnels.

[@rogerdudra178]

Greetings from the BIG SKY.

[@lostpony4885]

I was gonna go with the space lego but, confirming a constant hail of impacts on Mars is way cool because Elon will need a meteor-shooty thing for his mars base. I wanna see the cybertruck space laser or whatever

[@AenesidemusOZ]

The laser comms is a great step forward. Good, fast communications are a must.

[@mrbaab5932]

The 1980's is still great.

[@AenesidemusOZ]

@@mrbaab5932 Um, huh?

[@MCsCreations]

Thanks for all the news, Fraser! 😊 Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

[@orpal]

Thanks for the video! Can we tell how large L1527 (the proto star pic at the end) will be once it's finished forming?

[@A.R.00]

There is no theory I have ever heard of that plate tectonics appeared on Earth only 600 million years ago, maybe that’s a fringe theory somewhere, but the vast majority of scientists accept a much older origin, about a billion years after the Earth formed.

[@drronmccoy]

With respect to the tectonic story, there is a closer relationship between groundwater and plate tectonics, as the authors in that paper discussed. The factors in the Drake equation were normally considered as independent variables, but there is some conditional probability going on there because of the relationship between the presence of water, and an indication of habitability, and the presence of plate tectonics. in fact, some people think that tectonics are an inevitable result of the presence of groundwater. So, if you have enough water for habitability, you may also have tectonics and so we may be looking at an association and not causation. something to think about.

[@Dan-Simms]

Nice big beautiful owl, we kinda had a pet owl, it randomly starting hanging out in our chicken coop every night when it was young, and it stuck around for many years, it got so used too me coming in every night to close up and check for eggs that I could pet it.

[@AluVixapede]

Kuiper belt II, Kuiper Reloaded (For real, that's really exciting. I wish we could sling more probes out into the far solar system.)

[@joshmiller7870]

@12:16 I thought we were witnessing the demonstration of the Genesis Device 🖖

[@BestBFam]

Appreciate Universe Today so much.

[@yoseidman4166]

Excellent show this week. Very deep insights.

[@lindajirka5020]

I voted for the equipment fix on the Mars rover. But the owl and robin video was great. Please share more of your home environment.

[@davidrennie8197]

Excellent channel that I'd only come across today.

[@JohnnyWednesday]

If plate tectonics were ultimately caused by the impact event that created the moon - both plate tectonics and a large, close moon could have a statistical association when looking at planets in the universe. It also means anything about life that is potentially attributable to plate tectonics could also be attributable to the effects of a large moon - something we know that life is attuned to. So a blessing and a curse depending on your theory :)

[@geraldinefields1730]

Thank you. Barred owls are beautiful.

[@darkonc2]

They are treating the camera as fixed-focus and have determined the focal distance.

[@abcdd-xy2mf]

a question for your ask me a question video . Dose gravity have a measurable effect on time ?

[@AenesidemusOZ]

Yes. No need for a video now 😂 Sorry, couldn't resist.

[@adamroodog1718]

question. if space x achieves that much of a lift to orbit, what does a 100-200 ton planetary probe look like? what sort of science will be able to be done that we cant do now?

[@TheSporkenator]

0:00 Stereophonic, lava and tonic

[@ilkoderez601]

Love space news and the newsletter!

[@lostpony4885]

Atmosphere is garden mulch for your planet.

[@neotronextrem]

Id wish we find something analogous to a massive mirror somewhere deep in space, a few hundred million lightyears away, like maybe looking through a gravitational lense at certain zones of a black hole, that way we could see earth reflected as how it was a billion or so years ago. Imagine if the distance is right, we could see the Impact of Theia, and the formation of the Moon

[@Michael_G980]

I think plate tectonics are likely important for a wide range of diversity of complex life and not necessarily that important to the basic development of complex life. The constant and slow shifting of biomes and biome changes would likely cause stress within evolutionary systems that possibly would exist without plate tectonics. Still very much believe dark matter/dark energy is the real world equivalent of sub space in Star Trek, hence not being able to see or observe them directly because they exist in another “layer or dimension” of space.

[@tsbrownie]

Why crush up moon rocks when you can vacuum up dust (which is a bother)?

[@WynandSchoonbee]

Thank you for another fine episode!

[@jacksawyer3626]

Questions. Why is the universe a vacuum and why is it so cold? Thanks. Love your podcasts.

[@AenesidemusOZ]

1. Mass (gasses, dust, etc) clumps together due to its mass, generating areas of increased gravity, which collects more stuff, generating more gravity, so on and so forth. Eventually you have suns, planets, moons, and rocks with very little in between. That very little, we call vacuum. It's not empty however, just very close to it. 2. With no input of energy (heat) except by that radiated from stars, warm bodies slowly radiate their heat out into space, losing their energy in the process, until the body reaches an equilibrium with the energy of the surrounding space. Far enough away from a star, that temperature gets close to absolute zero at which point the atoms and molecules have so little energy left that they are hardly moving at all.

[@jacksawyer3626]

@@AenesidemusOZ Thanks but why absolute zero? And I’m still unclear on the vacuum. Why does it all come down to a vacuum?

[@AenesidemusOZ]

@@jacksawyer3626 1. All of the atoms that make up gasses, liquids, and solids - clump together because of gravity; when there is nothing left outside of that clump, that nothing is what we call a vacuum. 2. Atoms give away their energy by moving and if there is nothing like a sun around to give THEM energy, they eventually run out of energy and stop moving. This lack of motion* we call absolute zero. *I'm ignoring much in quantum physics here, I know. Don't @ me about it, OK?

[@jacksawyer3626]

@@AenesidemusOZ Thank you sir, very well said. I appreciate it.

[@PowerScissor]

If they get fast internet, Butch and Suni can watch all the videos saying they are stranded and roll their eyes.

[@terminusest5902]

URANIUM THORIUM LIFE EARTH One important factor often forgotten as vital to our life on Earth is the existence of large deposits of Uranium and Thorium deep in the Earth that may contribute nearly 50% of the Earths core heat. This heat is vital for the Earths magnetic field which in turn protects us from solar and cosmic radiation. Also assisting plate tectonics. Uranium and Thorium slowly release heat from radiation decay. So life on Earth is nuclear powered. Including solar fusion. And the universe is full of radiation from many sources.

[@CarlosOteroC]

👇Use as vote for Robin vs. Owl for space news of the week 🙌

[@oldtimer2662]

🦉😎

[@aalhard]

12:15 that crater on the right looks like a dime pressed into the regolith

[@MrYaroslavMudrij]

About plate tectonics: what if it's the other way around? Life created and boosted it. First microbes degraded and contributed to erosion of oceanic crusted creating lighter continental crust. Models should include all the work done by microorganisms for billions of years.

[@coulie27]

I love this episode. Solid graphics and topics, excellent work 🙌

[@davidguy209]

Canadian Robins are very different to the British equivalent. Much bigger looking. Different beaks, and more.

[@frasercain]

Yeah, very different bird.

[@JohnMuz1]

So dense with information my head imploded. ;-) thnx.

[@z0nx]

@universetoday could you put the "space bites" or whatever this is called in the title? All of the content is excellent of course, but it would be nice to be able to easily look for these news summaries!

[@michaelmcchesney6645]

My understanding was that the Kuiper Belt was defined by its distance from the Sun, and beyond the Kuiper was the Oort Cloud. As both contain icy bodies, why would the fact that New Horizons is detecting icy bodies more than 50 AUs from the Sun mean the Kuiper Belt should be extended?

[@AenesidemusOZ]

The belt is a region of bits - bits of ice, mostly - not a measured distance. That the bits go out further than previously thought is the surprise. The Oort cloud is only a hypothesis so far.

[@GadZookz]

Would astronauts on Mars who are hit by large falling space rocks be squished or would they be squashed? Wouldn’t the problem be just as bad on the Moon?

[@frasercain]

They'd be smershed

[@lawrenceleske3470]

Fixed Focus.

[@tyrport]

Are there any estimates of the mass of the Kuiper Belt.

[@mycosys]

I really dont think you made enough of that Mars asteroid rate. It dramatically changes chances of colonisation if any settlement needs to be 40m+ underground.

[@frasercain]

I'll let people come to their own conclusions. 😀

[@qarljohnson4971]

I suspect that Earth's plate tectonic systems are closely tied to the creation (Theia crash) and existence of such a proportionally large moon, tidally affecting the the Earth's crust, as well as oceans for the past 4.5 billion years. Life on Earth is the convergent result of astonishing luck!

[@danuttall]

Could the extended Keiper belt really be the beginnings of the Oort cloud?

[@chubbyadler3276]

It looks like they pretty much printed that Lego brick on a modified Ender 3. I've actually seen that same .STL on Thingiverse.

[@wayneosborne2506]

Man I love this channel. ❤

[@das250250]

It's an interesting point about data and astronauts taking the movies up . Data is light and is easily transmitted . So the real gain is taking the software , the intelligence and not the material.using on planet material is a far better use of our ability. Learning to adapt the materials on moon to build tools that can build buildings and machines

[@Gribbo9999]

Plate tectonics possibly linked with a magnetic flux to allow development of terrestrial life protected from ionising radiation. I think this needs to be included in the Drake equation if we are considering life able to develop technology that we might be able to spot.

[@alexisdespland4939]

now i want to see a rocket made of space lego.

[@brick6347]

Oddly, I just cancelled my trip to Legoland in London. We're going to the one in Denmark instead. My kids love Lego. I mean, my daughter went busking to buy sets when I wouldn't pony up! Obsessed.

[@frasercain]

There's one in Denmark too

[@brick6347]

​@@frasercainI know. That's why I said we're going to the one in Denmark instead.

[@lindajirka5020]

It can see objects clearly at it's focal length.

[@julieannepatterson3295]

really enjoyed that cheers

[@kensmith5694]

I don't expect man to return to the moon any time soon. There is nothing there worth the trip and doubly so when going there involves taking a human. I expect robots to explore and eventually set up a radio telescope.

[@danielculver2209]

Name the owl Hoot Gibson

[@Termini_Man]

Most energy of early life was produced via chemosynthetic, using inorganic minerals produce energy. these minerals came from hydrothermal vents. most hydrothermal vents form along plate boundaries.

[@billionsandbillionsofstars]

We missed you Fraser.

[@gavinrobinson6908]

Another great video, I appreciate everything that you teach us Fraser! I was wondering does it help the channel more if I watch the video via KZbin? If I watch it via Patreon does it still give the video a view on KZbin?

[@rosskennedy8548]

Of all the equipment planned for space launch, which do you think will have the greatest individual impact on our scientific understanding?

[@zlm001]

Thanks

[@NicholasNerios]

Great and informative.

[@-OICU812-]

Wow! Hey! We finally got fast internet service to ISS, so... let's crash it into the sea! Ah! I left my copy of "The Fifth Element" up there!

[@obiwanceleri]

That tectonic plate theory sounds a lot like scientists building around the idea the earth is a rare event / is the only place in the universe where there is intelligent life. The conclusion should happen AFTER you make your study. Hey, what do I know ...

[@j7ndominica051]

They can put several movies at standard definition on one bluray disk, or cat photographs from the entire world. More than they could shake a stick at. Or on an SD card. If they have to request data beforehand to this intermediary satellite, it's still not live network connection? Earthquakes are highly destructive. I wouldn't think they could encourage life. If I was on Mars, I'd still call them earthquakes. I would think Lego's rights on these plain blocks would be long expired, and they would be known by a generic name and produced eveywhere. We had these bricks in the Soviet Union.

[@cheesedoodlefeeder]

What about the trapped astronauts in the ISS?

[@Phil_AKA_ThundyUK]

Does the new laser internet stream or is it a pulsed "buffer" type relay? Can they stream Netflix for example (which only needs about 20megabits/s)?

[@Graham.W571]

Why cant they use Starlink for communicating with the ISS?

[@AenesidemusOZ]

Still not enough bandwidth, especially compared to laser, and this is more about future communication, beyond LEO.

[@xliquidflames]

Man, lens caps are notorious for causing problems on space missions. You have this issue with Perseverance. Then, didn't the Soviet Venera probes to Venus have lens cap issues? And I feel like there is one more I am forgetting. Or maybe it happened with two Venera probes?

[@das250250]

An interesting question is what fundamental automated machines would be critical to building all other machines and products necessary for building a settlement ?could we build better machines for such purpose ? I would start by saying the mobile phone is such a device

[@mechadense]

Biggest effect of plate tectonics (and merely roughly right amount of water) is likely to have land-continents above water and seafloors below water. Rather than all surface below water or all water below surface. Thus heavy cycles of evaporation on sea and condensation and rain on land. Thus life. The 🤯 part is that to my understanding life was critical for the formation of above sea level tectonic plates as all the lightweight lower density biogenerated calcite rock is what makes the crust float higher up on the mantle further squeezed by tectonic mountain formation pushing the surface above the sealevel at places. But how did the calcite formation initially start out IDK. The provlem I see is that in the deep sea e.g. at black smokers calcite is not stable due to high water pressure.

[@mechadense]

Main factors for early Earth history above surface continental seeds likely: oceanic-oceanic subduction zone island chains accumulating lower density silicate rich granite, potentially heped along by lower denstity rock from serpentinization and/or calcite percipitation in a potentially ocersaturated ocean (not necessarily though). Baseline heavy dense crust beliw seafloor is (ultra)mafic (i.e. metal rich) basalt (i.e. volcanic rock).

[@Spherical_Cow]

Boil any heterogeneous suspension long enough, and the lighter materials will accumulate at the top while the heavier components sink down. Plate tectonics is basically just that: the crust, and mantle, slowly roiling like a fluid in a boiling pot; it's just that the time scales (as well as mass and volume scales) are enormous by human standards.

[@mechadense]

@@Spherical_Cow - My thought was like: Without life having been around the volcanic CO2 may have much more remained in the atmosphere rather than getting fixated into calcite and there contibuting to continental upfloat. I thought that too heavy "boiling" mixes stuff again if the density difference is not big enough as with heavy vs light silicates alone. - Though I checked now and it seems to be only 1.5% to 2% calcite (by weight) in the crust. So that effect might not be as big as I thought.

[@mechadense]

I initially looked at elemental abundances. But most of the calcium is in silicates rather than in cacite (/aragonite) is seems.

[@Spherical_Cow]

@@mechadense while life is certainly very active in the carbon cycle, most of the volcanic carbon gets reburied and eventually subducted in the long term through the weathering of silicate minerals. Of course, the very long-term availability of silicate rock exposed to the carbon-containing atmosphere, is due to plate tectonics that keeps lifting such rock up above the sea level in the first place. Whereas in the biosphere, most of the carbon consumed by organisms ends up getting recirculated back into the atmosphere (giving the carbon _cycle_ its name) as those organisms die and decompose, or ingest other organisms or carbon compounds and metabolize them. Of all the carbon on Earth, only 0.002% is circulating through the biosphere at any given time.