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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.
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
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!
Probably some mineral, that can only form on the bottom of an ocean.
Privacy begins with
Same thing, different configuration options.
rewriting history since 2109
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.
Please be a Stargate. Please be a Stargate.
(sorry, but i still miss that show)
Where is the earth-shattering kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom.
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%
Something about a giant black monolith full of stars.
I love my sig.
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".
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.