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NASA Mars Press Briefing & "Significant Findings"
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."
to carry NASA TV. I swear, the closer you get to Kennedy Space Center, the less chance they will offer it.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't think either rover had any instruments designed for detecting any form of life. Unless it was significantly bigger than a microbe and could be seen with the relatively low-power microscope on the rover, I suppose.
Just out of interest, does the media in the USA cover space news from other countries? For instance, was the launching of the European "Rosetta" probe today covered?
It is a fascinating project. Take a look at the "Animated guide to the Rosetta mission" about half way down the page on this BBC news item).
It isn't life. Look at the list of scientists - not a biologist among them. Also, rotini-pasta-shaped rocks nonwithstanding, the rovers simply aren't equipped to detect life. This announcement is just about modern-day (i.e. not just historical) water. Don't get your hopes up.
That being said, it means there is a possibility there was past life, and perhaps some future probe (or manned landings) will discover microscopic fossils.
Yeah. Check out the Red/Green/Blue Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. One of the interesting things was the bacteria and molds that the scientists hid within some of the probes to "seed" Mars. And in defiance of some of their collegues that wanted a pristine Mars.
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It would be regrettable if this annoucement only amounted to "We have evidence from the rock layers / erosion patterns / spherule concretions that water must have been involved in the creation of these features", as we already know that water can today exist in liquid form on 30% of the planet's surface, and that water has been active on the Martian surface in the recent geological past (source). But given NASA's reluctance regarding all things water-related, I wouldn't be surprised if that's what it's going to be.
The really interesting stuff is the things they have avoided talking about, like the "mud-like texture". But most interesting in terms of water evidence is the trench dug by Opportunity. If you look at the fairly solid wall of soil at the right you will see a slightly dark streak on it. That streak leads directly to a puddle on the floor. Given this visual evidence, and the structure of the soil, it is pretty obvious that this stuff is wet.
The simple reality is that Mars is a wet planet. The oceans didn't just vanish, they went underground into the porous subsurface world of Mars. That's where the real action is, not on the UV-sterilized surface. All we see of Mars' underground water world on the surface is the occasional puddle or pond, the black streaks and Malin's famous gullies. If you want to see Martian life, find wet underground regions with geothermal activity.
Everybody is all excited about finding water on Mars because that increases the odds of finding life on Mars.
But the big excitement of finding water on Mars means that manned missions are possible. Not the one-way missions that were discussed previously here on slashdot, but the kind where we go in light and process our own fuel for the return trip.
Read any good sonnets lately?
Might make for interesting synchronicity.
-Peter