from Hacker News

Evidence for Large Climate Altering Thermonuclear Explosions on Mars in the Past

by reocha on 8/11/23, 3:03 PM with 22 comments

  • by philipkglass on 8/11/23, 3:15 PM

    This is crankery. Here's a direct link to the paper:

    https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=...

    The author runs https://kepleraerospace.com/ which claims to have developed "a suite of proprietary technologies ranging from exotic electromagnet propulsion, compact mobile fusion, gravity modification ..."

  • by bloopernova on 8/11/23, 3:15 PM

    Well that's certainly an attention-grabbing headline!

    I'm assuming they're talking about an airburst type meteor like in Tunguska? I don't have access to the paper.

    EDIT: can an airburst meteor include a nuclear explosion? Would a comet or asteroid have such plutonium/uranium material, has that been observed in nature?

  • by mydriasis on 8/11/23, 3:09 PM

    > It is hypothesized that two massive R-Process events occurred in mid-air over the Northern Plains of Mars. The R-Process is inferred to occur in astrophysical events, but has been seen on Earth in thermonuclear explosions [10]. In a planetary environment a large R-process event above the planetary surface would create powerful Tunguska-like explosions. Given the nitrogen and carbon dioxide components in the Mars atmosphere such fireballs would be expected generate large amounts of nitric acid. These hypothetical R-Process events caused the 129Xe/132Xe and 40Ar/36Ar excesses and occurred during the epoch of warm dense atmosphere on Mars, and terminated that epoch.

    R-process:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-process

  • by ortusdux on 8/11/23, 3:20 PM

  • by mhitza on 8/11/23, 3:26 PM

    Before checking the comments I thought it was a troll paper that got through "peer review" because this is how it renders for me in Linux in both Firefox/Chrome https://imgur.com/FBDiIXb.png

  • by bediger4000 on 8/11/23, 6:40 PM

    I have to confess that I love crankery like this!

    I'm looking for a similar type, some guy I ran across on Twitter I mean X a few years ago. He made a case for Ordovician period visit(s) by ETs based on chemical and isotope composition of Australian tektites, but I just can't find him again.

  • by herodotus on 8/11/23, 3:10 PM

    From the intro, explaining various puzzles that have come to light about Mars:

    "It is the aim of this article to explain these salient puzzles with a new hypothesis: that Mars was the site of massive thermonuclear explosions, of unknown cause, in the recent geologic past. "

  • by 1letterunixname on 8/11/23, 7:36 PM

    We need a dose of comedy every now and then.

    PS: The linked paper preview comes up as gibberish of mostly underscores and question marks. Voynich manuscript author rides again? Or maybe it's the answer to where The Buzzard left his loot?

  • by gmuslera on 8/11/23, 11:25 PM

    Didn't we have an April 1st this year already?