Science
Related: About this forumCuriosity Rover’s Secret Historic Breakthrough? Speculation Centers on Organic Molecules
Much of the internet is buzzing over upcoming big news from NASAs Curiosity rover, but the space agencys scientists are keeping quiet about the details.
The report comes by way of the rovers principal investigator, geologist John Grotzinger of Caltech, who said that Curiosity has uncovered exciting new results from a sample of Martian soil recently scooped up and placed in the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument.
This data is gonna be one for the history books. Its looking really good, Grotzinger told NPR in an segment published Nov. 20. Curiositys SAM instrument contains a vast array of tools that can vaporize soil and rocks to analyze them and measure the abundances of certain light elements such as carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen chemicals typically associated with life.
The mystery will be revealed shortly, though. Grotzinger told Wired through e-mail that NASA would hold a press conference about the results during the 2012 American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco from Dec. 3 to 7. Because its so potentially earth-shaking, Grotzinger said the team remains cautious and is checking and double-checking their results. But while NASA is refusing to discuss the findings with anyone outside the team, especially reporters, other scientists are free to speculate.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/11/curiosity-historic-news-organics/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialmedia&utm_campaign=wiredscienceclickthru
tridim
(45,358 posts)Life on Mars and legal pot.. Crazy cool times!
northoftheborder
(7,565 posts)BadgerKid
(4,539 posts)because they could have been deposited by asteroids.
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)I do appreciate that small molecules that emerge in biogeochemical cycling will probably be likely wherever life is found, but if I can't have something composed of metabolizing, self-reproducing membrane bound plasm as evidence of life, my biophilic sense prefers very large organic polymers