7 ms·
I think this article is wrong about the temperature. There is little information available but here is the original press release http://cipotato.org/press-room
by guelo 10y ago
I think this article is wrong about the temperature. There is little information available but here is the original press release http://cipotato.org/press-room/blog/indicators-show-potatoes-can-grow-mars/ http://cipotato.org/press-room/blog/indicators-show-potatoes...
From what I can gather they used soil from some Peruvian desert and increased the CO2 in the chamber. But there is no mention of simulating the -80F night temperatures typical on Mars.
- Shorel 10y agoI'm pretty sure Martians measure temperature in Celsius.
- techthroway443 10y agoYou say that now. Wait til they colonize!
- gregschlom 10y ago0 degrees Celsius being the freezing temperature of water at sea-level atmospheric pressure, that doesn't make much more sense either :-)
- komali2 10y agoWhy not? That's just one of the ways to measure the "constant" 0 degrees Celsius. What that temperature is doesn't change just because you're at different air pressure. You don't say "water boils at 100 degrees celsius at every altitude," you say "huh neat water boils at different temperatures at different altitudes."
- the8472 10y agotechnically it's defined as 0.01°C being the triple point of water. And since the solid-liquid boundary in the phase diagram[0] is relatively stable across wide pressure ranges that means that 0°C being the melting point is not just true at a single pressure value. [0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Phase_diagram_of_water.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Phase_di...
- ars 10y agoCelsius is equally arbitrary to Fahrenheit. No, Martians measure in Nano Yocto Planck Degrees above Absolute Zero, I hereby dub that unit the Plancktigrade.
- lazyant 10y agoarbitrary yes, equally, no.
- astrodust 10y agoCelsius at least has a family of units that mesh with it precisely. To heat one cubic centimetre of water up 1°C takes 1 Joule. It also essentially weighs 1 gram at normal temperatures. How many BTUs does it take to heat up one cubic foot of water by one degree Fahrenheit?
- posterboy 10y agoI thought Kelvin would be the appropriate unit for temperature differences, deg. Celsius be only used for absolute values.
- freeone3000 10y agoIt takes one BTU to heat one pound of water, one pint, one degree Fahrenheit. The units may be arbitrary, but they still line up.
- david-given 10y agoIs that a US or a UK pint?
- astrodust 10y agoYeah, but a pound of water is not a cubic foot. A pint has nothing to do with inches.
- ars 10y agoThat has nothing to do with temperature. You can keep metric and use Fahrenheit with very little change. And you got your units wrong anyway: "To heat one cubic centimetre of water up 1°C takes 1 Joule" - you mean 1 calorie, not 1 Joule. Change Celsius to Fahrenheit and only calorie changes, and since it's anyway not part of SI it makes little difference. Joule is the main energy unit, and it's not tied to Celsius at all. I totally get the arguments for metric - except for temperature. For temperature Fahrenheit is the better scale. Look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units#/media/File:SI_base_unit.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units#... And notice how Kelvin stands alone - it's not tied to any other unit. It can be replaced with almost no impact.
- bbcbasic 10y agoKelvin, FTW
- abrowne 10y agoThey use Kelvin. Source: KSR's Red/Green/Blue Mars trilogy ;-)
- nikdaheratik 10y agoPotatoes, especially sweet potatoes have been cultivated at high altitude for centuries in South America. You are probably right about -60C being too low, but if they provide some shelter potatoes could handle very low overnight temperatures without needing the amount of climate control that other crops would need. Which is one reason why they are looking at this crop.
- huxley 10y agoYou may be able to grow potatoes on Mars, but growing them in the Andes doesn't really get you that much closer to Martian conditions. Average pressure on Mars is about 0.6 kpa which is a trifle less than the pressure at Cusco which is approx 65 kpa pascals. Mt Everest is still about 37 kpa. I believe you'd have to go about 50km above sea level to hit the average pressure of Mars.
- mythrwy 10y agoSweet potatoes aren't even closely related to standard potatoes though. They are related to a morning glory where as standard potatoes are related to the tomato.
- hyperpallium 10y agoI think it's relevant to life on Mars that plants don't grow at antartic temperatures, which are: > The highest temperature ever recorded at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station was −12.3 °C (9.9 °F) on Christmas Day, 2011, and the lowest was −82.8 °C (−117.0 °F) Mars: > A summer day on Mars may get up to 70 degrees F (20 degrees C) near the equator, but at night the temperature can plummet to about -100 degrees F (-73 C).