Mission to Mars

[Alan]

What element would turn green in the presence of light?

Copper turns green in the presence of light and air. Maybe plumbers are a life form that used to exist on Mars.

 

[Gumby]

Copper turns green in the presence of light and air. Maybe plumbers are a life form that used to exist on Mars.

To the best of my knowledge, the air needs to have oxygen in it to oxidize the copper and cause the verdigris (green color).

 

[Alan]

To the best of my knowledge, the air needs to have oxygen in it to oxidize the copper and cause the verdigris (green color).

Even today oxygen makes up 0.16% of the atmosphere on mars. Who knows how much there was in the distant past before the mars atmosphere leaked into space. As per the Curiosity Rover in 2019.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddar...-curiosity-serves-scientists-a-new-one-oxygen

For the first time in the history of space exploration, scientists have measured the seasonal changes in the gases that fill the air directly above the surface of Gale Crater on Mars. As a result, they noticed something baffling: oxygen, the gas many Earth creatures use to breathe, behaves in a way that so far scientists cannot explain through any known chemical processes.

Over the course of three Mars years (or nearly six Earth years) an instrument in the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) portable chemistry lab inside the belly of NASA’s Curiosity rover inhaled the air of Gale Crater and analyzed its composition. The results SAM spit out confirmed the makeup of the Martian atmosphere at the surface: 95% by volume of carbon dioxide (CO2), 2.6% molecular nitrogen (N2), 1.9% argon (Ar), 0.16% molecular oxygen (O2), and 0.06% carbon monoxide (CO).

 

[Koolau]

So, lots of potential for wind farm? All we’d need is a really long cable to get it back to earth.

Actually, that may be the best way to create enough energy to turn water (or more likely CO2) into O2. We'll need 10's of tons of LOX to return from Mars.

Cool, a message, and also JPL's coordinates on earth. The martians will know exactly where to go when they complain about this littering.

Heh, heh, the "space junk" is a minor nuisance compared to all the radioactive fuel on board. That might really honk off the "neighbors" now that we've told them where we live. It's a bit worse than the flaming bag on the front porch trick. YMMV