Big News From Mars?

[yeahwho]

ALIENS? MARS ATTACK? WTF IS IT?

NASA verifying 'exciting' data from Mars Curiosity rover (http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/20/3671284/nasa-mars-curiosity-rover-secret-data)

Big News From Mars? Rover Scientists Mum For Now (http://www.npr.org/2012/11/20/165513016/big-news-from-mars-rover-scientists-mum-for-now)

That Mars rover found something, but we have to wait!

The exciting results are coming from an instrument in the rover called SAM. "We're getting data from SAM as we sit here and speak, and the data looks really interesting," John Grotzinger, the principal investigator for the rover mission, says during my visit last week to his office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. That's where data from SAM first arrive on Earth. "The science team is busily chewing away on it as it comes down," says Grotzinger.

Grotzinger says they recently put a soil sample in SAM, and the analysis shows something earthshaking. "This data is gonna be one for the history books. It's looking really good," he says.

[Randetica]

i read about this a week ago, hurry the fuck up!

[drizl]

It pisses me off how NASA trickles down info. They no a lot more than they tell us. I bet we have a colony on mars by now:)

I have heard a few times that there is more water on mars than on earth, that it is 6" below the soil and in a different state than we know water to be in on earth. I am going to go find the source of that article.

[checkyourprez]

im interested in this.



i wouldn't be surprised if there were microorganisms or something there. i think there is a lot of life in the universe. just look at how much we know about our planet and just math and science in general that people didn't know only a short time ago. look at how fast technology, relatively speaking, has expounded upon itself. and compare that to how long the earth has been around. now think about how long the universe has been around, how many possibilities there are out there. many many life forms probably have been birthed, peaked and perished and us be none the wiser.

[Pres Zount]

It's probably something dumb and uninteresting, like a new type of dirt or whatever.

[HAL 9000]

^ The results were released on December 3rd, it basically was some new type of dirt.

It turns out that reports of a major discovery were false and came from an interview where a NASA scientist gave unclear messages that were misunderstood by the reporter.

They do think they might have found some organic molecules, but not enough to be certain that they didnt come from earth with the Rover all just fall from space. Organic molecules just means molecules with carbon in, does not imply life.

Curiosity is not designed to look for life directly so it is unlikely to find anything conclusive. Its discoveries might help scientist design the next rover so they can look for life.

The best hope for Curiosity is to confirm the presence of Methane in the atmostphere. Methane is unstable and does not last long in the atmostphere so its presence means it has to have an active source. The main thhings we know that generate methane are volcanos and life. So finding methane probably means either some volcanic activity going on or some microbial life.

[Pres Zount]

Hahaha, loves it.

Cheers for the update, too.

[Bob]

now zount, don't get too proud of yourself--when you hear that they've discovered something on mars, "some kind of dirt" is a pretty safe guess

it's like playing "i spy" in antarctica with someone and they tell you that they see something beginning with "S"



yeah that's right, i'm officially too cool to be excited about mars anymore. life moves fast keep up nasa