Power drains, Blue Mars and Boiling Rivers

 
Hello, everyone. My apologies for delay in this post, but my Google has been playing up.
Terrible thing, I know, but such is modern life.
If I didn't know better, I'd say that dark forces were at work ; after all, my microblog with its puny readership of two people and a bored translator in the Steppes must surely be inching closer to world domination .
The blog itself has been ' playing up ' , as I received a comment on the last post, and my attempts to respond were deleted mid-air, it seems.
So, in lieu of a response, this post shall be my reply to the comment.

A damaged magnet in LHC 2008

Even the Large Hadron Collider, the worlds largest and most expensive physics experiment is vulnerable.
The Large Hadron Collider uses a lot of electricity - 13 trillion electrovolts, following its recent upgrade.
This puts it on a par with the nearby city of Geneva.
Part of the immense power load is drawn from France , as well as Switzerland.
The French side of things is overseen by EDF, who impose strict conditions (including the fact that the LHC cannot function for certain days of the year ).
A lot of the power is used to maintain a constant temperature inside the collider, that is equal to deep space  (-271.25°c ).
this ensures that there is no danger of meltdown.
Well, that's the theory.
My last post told of animal intervention, where weasels, birds and raccoons had scuppered the world of science.
Even a multi-billion dollar enterprise like the LHC is vulnerable to 'Acts Of God' - or at least the Natural World.

I try not to be too topical on this blog, as it could be weeks, months or even years after the event that people read of it, but a rare occurence is due tomorrow, May 9th 2016 , with the transit of Mercury across the sun.
Like the passing of a comet, the transit of a planet across the sun is considered symbolic.
The transit of Mercury is apparently good for catching up with correspondence, communications, etc.

In other news from Mars, we hear that the water flows we see may be boiling - and parts of the planet are blue, as opposed to red !

Nilae Fossae is a blue area of Mars  

Also, staying with the martian thing, NASA have announced the discovery of oxygen in small amounts on Mars.
Haven't we been here before ?
Personally, I can't get very excited - the problem is that most of the atmosphere on Mars has gone, evaporated into the ether, millenia ago - so how does this find affect the present situation ?
I suppose it lends weight to any proposed Terraforming initiative, so the recent Space X landings and proposed 'Red Dragon' mission , would seem to contribute to this ever-increasing excitement as Earth2 becomes an almost tangible prospect.
.