If you're around Horsell Common over the next few days, better keep an eye out for cylinders.
Welcome To TV Tropes | How To Write An Example | Text Formatting Rules | List Of Shows That Need Summary | TV Tropes Forum | Know The StaffI was justreading about this! They do have massive dust storms and tornadic activity on Mars. My guess is it is somehow related to those in some way.
Devypu's~ Big Pony :3While Mars does have an atmosphere and distinct weather patterns, it's atmospheric pressure is something like 0.2% that of Earth's. "Massive" storms on Mars are so dispersed you probably wouldn't notice more than a haze from the Martian surface (though some Martian sandstorms can cover an entire hemisphere), and though the wind speed can get high, the wind pressure is so low that using windfarms to power a Mars base has long been considered impossible. For that matter, the air pressure is so low that you wouldn't be able to fly a traditional aircraft, and jet engines would be inoperable, though airships could be made very large and very practical on Mars.
Scientists are freaking out about this cloud because it IS so dense and large, that it basically does not match up with any Martian weather pattern we have observed (and we have been observing the Martian atmosphere for nearly two hundred years, believe it or not, with Earth-based telescopes). Also, it appears to be composed of water vapor, which is outright strange considering that water vapor concentrations tend to be very low, and normally in the form of freezing mists that cling to the near-surface of the planet - not high-altitude clouds.
edited 24th Mar '12 12:53:28 AM by MyGodItsFullofStars
Physics is not my strong suit, but wouldn't thin air tend to make airships less practical, rather than more? Since, you know, if airships flew better in thinner air then they'd have more and more lift the higher they went and every airship would launch into orbit on being untethered from the ground.
<><Massive cloud on Mars. How did it get there?
I hope it's an interesting answer. Or a mystery. Those are fun.
What's the frequency Kenneth?|In case of war.![]()
It's a tricky beast, so I'm glad someone asked for clarification!
You are absolutely correct in that the buoyant force on Mars is far less than it is on Earth. The difference, however, is that the force of gravity is 1/3 that of Earth's, and the turbulent forces are almost negligible. The result is that you have to make your Martian airship much larger than one on Earth, but you can do so without worrying that the craft would fall apart under its own weight and the shearing forces caused by wind. Also, because the Martian atmosphere is almost all carbon dioxide, you could inflate the craft with any number of cheap, nonflammable gases - for instance, Argon is a good contender, especially because it is plentiful enough in the Martian atmosphere to be harvested.
Oh, just to clarify, thinner air means less, not more, buoyant force. It isn't so much that there's "less air to get in the way, so a balloon rises faster"; instead, think of it like "there's less air to support the balloon, so it takes more uplifting gas to raise the balloon to a particular height".
Believe me, if all it took was a balloon to launch things into orbit from Mars, we'd already have settlements on the red world.
edited 24th Mar '12 2:48:12 PM by MyGodItsFullofStars
It's the damn Reapers!!!!!
Lol, nah this is pretty cool though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXkI1sTDoEgIt's a case of "I knew who started the thread even before I clicked on it"

A cloud that reaches high into the Martian atmosphere
has been spotted by an amateur astronomer. It could be all sorts of things - a volcano, a meteorite impact, visitors, Barack Obama's time machine, wormsign, swampgas, the planet Venus, a weather balloon...
So, what is your theory? And, how should we prepare? (You can answer this question seriously, or just get silly with it, I just thought it was interesting and might be fun to talk about).