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NASA Mars Press Briefing & "Significant Findings"

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the we're-on-the-edge-of-our-seats-really-i-swear dept.

An anonymous reader writes "NASA will have a press briefing today at 2 p.m. EST to announce "significant findings". Salty liquid water maybe? Bacteria? This meeting will also be broadcast on NASA TV."

11 of 485 comments (clear)

  1. NASA TV via Internet - RTFA by michael+path · · Score: 5, Informative

    NASA TV

  2. What they found. by neodymium · · Score: 5, Informative

    German newsmag "Der Spiegel" has the story: They found a certain kind of iron sulfate compound, which forms only in bodys of standing water. Discoveries were made using the MIMOS-II Moessbauer spectrometer and the APXS x-ray spectrometer. Images are available in the article.

  3. Satellite option by Attaturk · · Score: 4, Informative


    NASA Television can be found on the satellite AMC 9 Transponder 9C, 85 degrees west longitude, vertical polarization downlink frequency - 3880 MHz, Audio is at 6.8 MHz.

  4. Re:I hope it's not life by tmasssey · · Score: 5, Informative
    Mars probes already go through some sort of expensive sterilization process. They want to avoid contamination.

    --
    Linux IT Consulting and Domino Development in Michigan
  5. Re:NASA TV streaming by sam1am · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can view NASA TV online, as well, it seems... (The page also has satellite coordinates, and alternate sources for NASA TV)

  6. The BBC carried this yesterday by Albanach · · Score: 4, Informative
    in this article they said NASA will announce "Significant findings" about water on Mars at a Press Conference today [Tuesday] in Washington DC.

    So exciting stuff, but probably not any microbes.

  7. It's water - says SPIEGEL magazine's exclusive by xTina · · Score: 4, Informative
    ... it claims to have a source inside NASA.
  8. Re:Microbes? I doubt it. by BRSQUIRRL · · Score: 5, Informative

    You are correct...I don't believe the microscopic imager has the magnification muscle to view something as small as bacteria, and the Mossbauer spectrometer is very specific in what it can analyze (iron-bearing minerals). These rovers are, as designed, primarily geological instruments.

    For details about what the rovers are carrying, instrument-wise, see this page.

  9. NASA TV is viewable with mplayer! by david.given · · Score: 5, Informative
    Do this:

    mplayer mms://wmbcast.nasa-global.speedera.net/\
    wmbcast.nasa-global/wmbcast_nasa-global_jan\
    212004_1021_53608

    (Watch out for the \ that mark line continuations!)

    Frame rate is low, but the audio's nicely in sync and is certainly decent enough for watching press releases.

    Beware, though, that as I post, NASA TV is broadcasting some ghastly children's programme. You have been warned...

  10. NASA TV also available via Internet2 Multicast by Danathar · · Score: 5, Informative

    NASA does not put it on their page (I emailed them asking them to), but if you are on an Internet2 enabled + multicast enabled network (college/university) it is available via MPEG1 multicast feed.

    You can view it with Quicktime, Real 9 (real 10 crashes with SDP), VideoLan and CISCO IP/TV.

    To view it on Videolan start the player with

    --extraint SAP

    and look at the playlist....it can take up to 10 min before you'll see the NASA listing.

    If anybody wants the sdp file I'll try and find a way of posting it. I tried to...but the slashdot forum filters killed my post!

  11. They've found life! by kogalurshear · · Score: 4, Informative
    Back in 1976, the LRE experiments on Viking were consistent with evidence for microbial life on Mars. These were dismissed as false positives by some in the community, despite the protests of Gilbert Levin, one of the original researchers on the project. Fortunately, he saved printouts of all the data, and these were later used in 2001 by Miller, a biologist at USC. The new study showed evidence of a periodic gas release according to circadian rhythms consistent with microbial life. In retrospect, Miller said there was a 75% chance of life, given the data in 1975. After his study in 2001, he said there was a 90% chance of life.

    The summary of the study can be found at USC here.