The Watch
LATITUDE
MARS DREAM CRASH LANDS The headline-grabbing Mars One project appears to be sliding into obscurity, now that its commercial arm, Mars One Ventures AG, has gone bankrupt. The company was created to fund the ambitious initiative, which aimed to locate a permanent human settlement on the red plan- et—and, naturally, create a reality television show. From the moment it was announced in 2012, Mars One has had more than its share of doubters, particu- larly from the space industry. Many did not think it would be possible to land a four-person crew on Mars for as little as $6 billion, given the astronomical costs of space travel. But even if it were possible to adequately fund such an endeavour, experts argued that life on Mars would likely be impossible with current technologies. In 2014, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
released a report on the feasibility of the project that argued that settlers would die within the first 68 days. That’s because growing crops within the habitat would produce unsafe levels of oxygen and lead to suffocation. And while Mars One aimed to melt Martian ice for drink- ing water, no current technologies exist to do that. Other critics think the project’s many logistical weaknesses, unrealistic financial requirements, and delayed deadlines are signs it was a scam all along. One thing is certain: Real Housewives of Mars or Survivor: The Mars Edition will not be coming to your TV anytime soon. Fortunately, you can still experience the planet via the Mars Curiosity Rover’s sassy Twitter account. You can also check out a new, 360-degree video capturing a portion of its journey along the Vera Rubin Ridge at a Mars NASA site. See our link box on next page.
NOT YOUR GRANDMA’S MOON ROCK Since Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first walked upon the moon in 1969, teams of astronauts and scientists have collected and analyzed rocks from its surface. Yet only now, researchers are learning that some of our moon rock may actually be Earth rock. One sample, brought home during the Apollo 14 mission 48 years ago, may have actually originated on our own planet. The rock’s age is estimated at 4 billion years, dating it from around the time life is believed to begun on Earth. Researchers arrived at their conclusion because the sample is a type of felsite, which is made up of feldspar, quartz, and small amounts of zircon, and is produced by plate tectonics: a very earthly phenomenon. So, how did it get to the moon? One theory is that, not long after Earth formed, an asteroid or comet struck the planet and sent displaced rock hurtling through space. Some of it hit the moon. No matter how it got there, the sample appears to be the oldest rock geologists have ever identified.
EARTHLY EVIDENCE Apparently, not only shadows from Earth have hit the moon, like this one captured during the 2019 eclipse. Researchers now say that a sample collected from the moon appears to be a 4-billion-year-old Earth rock.
64 | PEG SPRING 2019
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