Interplanetary litterbugs.
  • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.worldEnglish
    34·
    11 months ago

    Opportunity spent 15 years roving its ass off for this planet and now we have the nerve to call it “Space Junk.” No respect.

    • XeroxCool@lemmy.world
      7·
      11 months ago

      It proved it’s ass off because it thought maybe, just maybe, if It analyzed one more good rock, we’d let it come home since it’s original mission was only supposed to be 30 days.

  • Tetra@kbin.social
    181·
    11 months ago

    I’m glad the article mentions that in this case, it really doesn’t matter; like, there seems to be nothing to ‘pollute’ on Mars (also 7 tonnes is not much at all). Bit of a strange headline to me.

      • PoopingCough@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        11 months ago

        You’re not wrong with your sentiment but i think it’s pretty safe to say that if we find life on Mars it’s gonna be trapped in ice somehow or deep below the surface. Besides having next to no atmosphere, it also has no magnetosphere which means it takes the full blast from solar radiation. Nothing living on Earth could survive outside on the surface of Mars.

      • Tetra@kbin.social
        31·
        11 months ago

        I suppose so, but I believe they always make sure not a single trace of Earth life is left on the equipement they sent to Mars, for obvious reasons. So they already control for that.

        Besides looking pretty messy, I’m not sure this does any harm.

          • XeroxCool@lemmy.world
            3·
            11 months ago

            Mars is inhabited by robots, but the Moon is inhabited by tardigrades because China crashed a lander.

              • XeroxCool@lemmy.world
                2·
                11 months ago

                Wrong country and wrong outcome, I really nailed it. Given how hardy they are, I can’t say I’m convinced they’re all dead. Not that they’d actually be active without air and water

    • Thorry84@feddit.nl
      51·
      11 months ago

      Chill, it’s a handful of stuff on an entire freaking planet. Sure Mars isn’t as big as Earth, but it’s still huge. You would be hard pressed to even find a single trace of man if you’re on that planet.

      It’s a clickbait title, look at how bad the humans are. In the grand scheme of things this is a nothingburger. The benefits vastly out way the potential downside of dropping some stuff on another planet. Even if there is some trace of life there, dropping a little bit of stuff doesn’t harm it in any way.

      Also remember the scale here, it shows as dots on the map, so you think there is a lot. But in reality the size of the stuff compared to the size of the planet wouldn’t even show up on a picture. It’s not even big enough to be a single pixel. If the resolution was 10x greater, it still wouldn’t be a single pixel. It’s like those maps where they show the space debris around Earth to make it look like there is a lot. It’s tricky to spot anything man made on Mars with high powered optics in a low orbit and knowing exactly where to look. If you can see the whole hemisphere, you ain’t seeing shit.