Sunday, June 01, 2008

How long till we start seeing Mars dust arguments?

I'm sure most people are familiar with the astoundingly bad Creationist argument that states there's too little dust on the moon for it to have been accumulating for the past 4.5 billion years. It's so bad, that even Answers in Genesis says not to use it. Of course, this didn't stop the willfully ignorant companion of Brother Jed from using it last month.

But of course, if there's not enough dust on the moon, then there's probably not enough dust on Mars. And with the new Phoenix lander on the surface digging through that dust, I'm willing to bet it's not going to be long before we start hearing "Mars dust" arguments popping up. And I bet they're also going to point to this press release showing that the dust is really thin. Thin enough that the retrorockets that helped give the lander a soft landing was able to blow it away to uncover a solid substrate.