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Post by gato on Jul 26, 2020 6:51:56 GMT -5
A US probe, due to be launched this week on a mission to Mars, will be carrying a small piece of basalt, which arrived here from Mars 600,000 -700,000 years ago. I get the sentiment; when my divorced neighbor up the hill behind my house, has his kids for weekend visitation, decorative pebbles from his garden always end up tossed onto my patio. And I always helpfully chuck them back over the fence, just to be neighborly. The scientists figure the piece of Mars they're returning, got blasted off the red planet when an asteroid or comet smacked down. They want to use the chunk of rock to calibrate the instruments on board the travelling lander before it sets down on Mars. Why couldn't they do that before the launch? Hey, that's why they launch space missions and all I launch is Netflix and occasionally, HBO. www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jul/26/rock-from-mars-heads-home-after-600000-years-on-earth
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