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What "Earth-Shaking" Discovery Has Curiosity Made on Mars?
Randym writes "NASA scientists have some exciting new results from one of the rover's instruments. On the one hand, they'd like to tell everybody what they found, but on the other, they have to wait because they want to make sure their results are not just some fluke or error in their instrument. 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,' says John Grotzinger. He's the principal investigator for the rover mission. SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) is a suite of instruments onboard NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity. Grotzinger says they recently put a soil sample in SAM, and the analysis shows something Earth-shaking. 'This data is gonna be one for the history books. It's looking really good,' he says."
I predict that the results are accurate, but not nearly as exciting as NASA is trying to get us to believe.
It may yet be a scientific triumph, but a public opinion flop. Or a thestudio_bob flop.
Speak for yourself.
If so, let me be the first to say I welcome our new martian overlords. Just please don't be the wussy kind of martians that die easilyto earth's microbial organisms.
In a bit of shameless internet panhandling, I accept Litecoin Donations at Lbd2oH9QsthD1GfuUXPyka12YxvWJYnBVf
I bet it turns out that Mars is made of:
Sugar, Glucose Syrup, Skimmed Milk Powder, Milk Fat, Vegetable Fat, Cocoa Butter, Cocoa Mass, Lactose, Demineralised Whey Powder, Fat Reduced Cocoa Powder, Barley Malt Extract, Soya Lecithin (E322), Salt, Egg White, Hydrolysed Milk Protein, Natural Vanilla Flavour
which is totally what she said
If this turns out to be some organic matter that accidentally made the trip to mars with the rover itself, I'll be very disappointed.
Also, whoever tagged the article with the misspelled "curiousity"... great job.
Elections are over. So they probably have something, this time.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Earth-shaking? Well then it is obvious.
They found evidence of an earth quake. On Mars !!
Are a million to one he said...
I don't think we want them to discover something on Mars that actually shakes the earth
OOOOH-LAHHH
We found something that looks like it could maybe be the remnants of something that would maybe only show up in an environment that had maybe been exposed to water!
It's a good thing Curiosity brought Surface to Air Missiles along on the trip to protect against an alien invasion of Mars.
That seems likely. A public fed on movies tends to not think real world discoveries are exciting enough.
Please don t be a be a "Donald Trump" announcement.
"We're offering 5 million dollars to the charity of your choice if you can prove Mars accepted any of the vanquished troops Rome offered."
They have found chocolate. At least that's what I've found on the surface of every single Mars I've eaten.
Wasn't the last "earth-shaking" announcement that of bacteria using arsenic instead of phosphorus in their molecular construction?
They'll want to be very sure about whatever it is before going public.
Way to go, Grotzinger. You've just totally undermined NASA's effort to keep their mouths shut until they've carefully checked the data.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Probably some mineral, that can only form on the bottom of an ocean.
Privacy begins with
I bet they've found Sandkings
And then watch how fast and quickly they boost NASA's budget.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Uh no... Mars bars >.
I do not like green cheese, SAM I am.
What else would it be?
Mars rover finding
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
Same thing, different configuration options.
rewriting history since 2109
I really hope this isn't going to be like the faster-than-lightspeed-discovery that was an intrument error!
So feel free to double check the instruments!
I'm hoping for Evil Curiosity which has a goatee and has been sent by a world mirroring our world in almost every way. Except they're all evil. Although somewhere on that planet will be a mirror version of me.. but.. er.. without a goatee?
"One for the history books" means life. Remember how important it was that one of the two earlier rovers found surface water by getting a wheel stuck in the mud? Remember how big a story that was? That is not getting into the history books. The most likely alternate possibility is that the techies are overblowing the importance of this because it is a big thing in their world.
Given the description of the instrument, it is likely that they got a successful result from a Viking-style experiment which they are taking as evidence for life.
For the results to truly be Earth-shaking, they have to have found Marvin the Martian's Illudium Q-36 space modulator.
While taking another picture of itself, it noticed that something has slapped a "Barsoom" bumpersticker on the fender.
We've known for 40 years what comes from Mars and shakes the earth...
It's the "Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator".
Marvin has been searching for YEARS for that darned thing; ever since Buggs was able to get it away from him. Let's hope that he's not looking at the news today.
___ I don't respond to Anonymous Cowards, and I Never Mod them UP.
Please be a Stargate. Please be a Stargate.
(sorry, but i still miss that show)
... Waldo!
When 1person suffers from a delusion,it is called insanity.When many people suffer from a delusion,it is called religion
Apparently, it's real.
Should be evidence of life, something not so surprising. But could be even more shattering to find that we are actually martians that come here very long ago escaping from the climate change that we caused on Mars (even that we Marsformed Earth back then).
Where is the earth-shattering kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom.
There may have been liquid water in that very spot at some point in the last 50,000,000 years!
That's nothing, I could tell you what the Milky Way is made of.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Well, there are only two Earth-shaking possible discoveries: life on Mars, or intelligent life on Mars
Or evidence of either in the past.
Or Roman helmets, that would work, too.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Everyone assumed it was 5.3%
That's nothing, I could tell you what the Milky Way is made of.
Here's the list of ingredients.
I've got my money on them discovering that curiosity has actually landed on a future earth after getting caught in a temporal anomaly. Turns out SAM found part of the Statue of Liberty.
~theCzar
Same thing, different configuration options.
Problem is, they're compile-time, not run-time.
too exciting to the rest of us unless we are geologists. Personally I would be very excited by organics or even just carbonates but the short-attention-span, scientifically-illiterate public might snooze. But remember, no matter what the results are, the mission has been a big success. Just because Mars may not be what we want it to be, doe not make the mission a failure.
American or European?
A skull! ....of a dinosaur.... ...in a space suit!
-Styopa
Apparently you're just a normal American.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
All that SAM has analyzed so far is a mini dust/sand dune so I don't see how complex organic compounds could possibly be preserved. UV, perchloates, solar wind, etc. should have broken any of these down, but I think that carbonates will be preserved. But carbonates would not be an earth-shattering discovery. If fact I think that it has already been detected or theorized to be in Martian dust so this is a bit of a mystery. And it has been seen by the Spirit rover and from orbit, albeit in small amounts.
The problem with evidence of life is that it's usually something along the lines of "POSSIBLE evidence of life, *maybe* (or possibly not)" And that's the kind of thing that will produce sensationalist "Life Found on Mars!" headlines in the press, but which will likely be followed by the inevitable "Turns out what they found probably wasn't jackshit" disappointment--which will only turn the public even more skeptical of the usefulness of these sorts of missions in the future.
Now Roman helmets, on the other hand...
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
What I'd like: announcement of microbial life in Martian soil, probably some sort of methanogen.
What we'll probably get: Methane is being generated in the soil...probably...with no idea of the actual origin.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
"Life on Mars" would be huge.
"Possible evidence of there maybe once being life of Mars, or not" would be who-gives-a-fuck.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Like http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/31/Marvinthemartain.jpg ?
Now Congress will be reluctant to approve funding of further missions to Mars because all the fashion mags are telling voters that Mars is fattening and unsuitable for the lactose-intolerant, diabetics, and people with egg and soy allergies. Fantastic. You've just set the space program back 50 years.
I saw a "documentary" about this, something about Transformers and the dark side of the moon...
He did break down and tell his family. "I remember at the dinner table with great excitement explaining to my wife, Susan, and my daughter, Bethany, what it was we were doing," says Zare. And then he experienced something many parents can relate to when talking to their kids.
"Bethany looked at me and said, 'pass the ketchup.' So, not everybody was as excited as I was," he says.
He told his family what he can't yet tell the world, and his daughter's reaction was, "pass the ketchup." So the discovery must be pretty bland.
Something about a giant black monolith full of stars.
I love my sig.
There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom!
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess alkaloids. This is just from the level of excitement in the SAM guy's voice, relative to the complexity of the organics. If he really discovered long strands of DNA, he'd be jumping up and down and wetting his pants. I didn't hear that.
No oxygen to burn it with. The biggest reason coal is so useful on Earth is because it reacts with the ever-abundant oxygen in the air to make warmth (which can be used for power with some more materials)
Discovering free oxygen would be a very big deal, but extremely unlikely. The only reason there is free oxygen on Earth is because early life started some sort of photosynthesis and starting giving off oxygen as a waste product that had the side effect of poisoning all their bacterial competitors. That event is known as the "Oxygen Catastrophe".
Prohibited from saying what the data is, Grotzinger couldn't help himself and gave the public a morsel of a hint while quietly snickering to himself.
I see what you did there.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
You know what scares me? The fact that I already knew what it was before clicking on the link.
It could be that you're psychic, but in order to be sure, we'll need to repeat the experiment. Can you guess what's on the other side of this link?
goatse.cx
NASA just saved a bunch of money on their rover insurance by switching to GEICO.
Something like that would be more of a Mars-shaking discovery. Speaking of that, who says they're not meaning it literally? They found something on Mars that shakes the planet Earth. Like it causes earthquakes or something, lol.
Its not science until they open this information for peer review. The secrecy and beuracracy around NASA doesnt allow any real science to happen.
If they finally open up and admit they've found chlorophyl on the "red planet" for the 3rd time I will be amazed.
Go back and think for a minute. The information will be open for review but the JPL folks have to make sure that the information is 'real' and not spurious. Free dissemination of scientific data doesn't mean that the National Enquirer gets real time view of the SAM downlink. Sometimes 'science' takes a while. Happens in fits and starts. Ideas and data are presented, then proved wrong.
Shields down. Not everything is a conspiracy. Sometimes even earth shattering ideas are just mundane.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
No boom today. Boom tomorrow.
--Udo.
I'd go for another few compounds that would make it easy for us to live there.
Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
Maybe they found the other end of Archimedes' lever.
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
Negative. It's turtles all the way down.
There's been life on mars for quite a while. We put it there.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Well, there's always the Sabatier process, which requires hydrogen (found in the coal) and some heat, combined with some chaperoning from Auntie Ruthenium under lots of pressure, to produce oxygen and methane, which can in turn be burned to produce carbon dioxide and water, the former being vented to atmosphere and the latter being retained for drinking, watering plants, etc.
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
There is a third option: Intelligent life on Earth.
i just put in
I thought for sure that with the "earth shaking" comment, they would announce that they detected an earthquake, demonstrating that mars is still geologically active.
Actually coal, or any carbon source, wouldn't be a usable energy source, since there's very little free oxygen on Mars.
Discovering free oxygen would be a very big deal, but extremely unlikely. The only reason there is free oxygen on Earth is because early life started some sort of photosynthesis and starting giving off oxygen as a waste product that had the side effect of poisoning all their bacterial competitors. That event is known as the "Oxygen Catastrophe".
Hi, my name is iron oxide, I'm all over mars (in fact I give the planet its characteristic red color) and make a great accelerator for thermite and other high-energy thermal reactions.
Free oxygen is everywhere. You just gotta get it from me, first.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Discovering free oxygen would be a very big deal
How about the perchlorates that we already know exist on Mars? Some of those only need to be heated up a little to create free oxygen.
I was thinking of A figurehead from an 18th century sailing ship. Or maybe they found some 5 airplanes.
Actually coal, or any carbon source, wouldn't be a usable energy source, since there's very little free oxygen on Mars.
Discovering free oxygen would be a very big deal, but extremely unlikely. The only reason there is free oxygen on Earth is because early life started some sort of photosynthesis and starting giving off oxygen as a waste product that had the side effect of poisoning all their bacterial competitors. That event is known as the "Oxygen Catastrophe".
Hi, my name is iron oxide, I'm all over mars (in fact I give the planet its characteristic red color) and make a great accelerator for thermite and other high-energy thermal reactions.
Free oxygen is everywhere. You just gotta get it from me, first.
He did not mean free as in beer. He meant free as in "not covalently bonded to other elements at the bottom of a huge thermodynamically stable well".
same here. I wonder how many others on this site did as well.
Curiosity rover confirms: Mars soil tastes like dirt!
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
The oxygen in iron oxide isn't free. It's quite tightly bound. To get it to react, you need to mix it with something that binds the oxygen even more tightly: for example, aluminium (to make thermite).
There's no aluminium on Mars (at least, aluminium that isn't already bound into minerals).
You wouldn't leak it ahead of checking it though, maybe not even after checking it. You'll know they've found life when they say nothing for a while.
Nullius in verba
Given the affected spelling, I'm going with European.
That was a reference to Monty Python's African or European Sparrows in The Quest For The Holy Grail... Or as the locals say: "Woooosh!"