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Curiosity Confirms Origins of Martian Meteorites

Posted by samzenpus on from the sky-is-falling dept.

littlesparkvt writes "Earth's most eminent emissary to Mars has just proven that those rare Martian visitors that sometimes drop in on Earth — a.k.a. Martian meteorites — really are from the Red Planet. A key new measurement of Mars' atmosphere by NASA's Curiosity rover provides the most definitive evidence yet of the origins of Mars meteorites while at the same time providing a way to rule out Martian origins of other meteorites."

6 of 35 comments (clear)

  1. The Key Word is "Confirms" by mbone · · Score: 5, Informative

    Curiosity is just confirming the results of the Viking entry science neutral atmospheric composition experiment (different from the mass spectrometer operated on the surface). It's very nice to have this nailed down, but I don't think it changes anything.

    1. Re:The Key Word is "Confirms" by icebike · · Score: 2

      So a sample of gasses violently encapsulated in molten rock after a impact of a rather large body upon a planet with enough force to eject significant amounts of rock has the exact same components as the atmosphere it was blasted through?

      That's amazing. More amazing that a random rock from Mars landing on earth.

      --
      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    2. Re:The Key Word is "Confirms" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Oh no it has not the exact same composition. But certain elemental and isotopic ratios are characteristic enough. Look at this abstract for example http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0012821X84901833

    3. Re:The Key Word is "Confirms" by NoKaOi · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well no... The thing about aliens visiting us is that it implies not only intelligence, but knowledge beyond ours. That's got major implications. Some random proteins a few billion miles away... not so interesting.

      Not as interesting as aliens visiting us, but still having potential major implications just the same. Why? If there is evidence strong enough for the medial to call "proof" of life on another planet, it'll "prove" to the uneducated masses that there's a lot more interesting stuff out there than we know about, and that there really could be intelligent life elsewhere, so it's worth putting more resources into scientific research and maybe even education. Then again I'm probably being optimistic, and nobody would really care about finding life on other planets until we have licensing agreements for their reality shows.

    4. Re:The Key Word is "Confirms" by VortexCortex · · Score: 2

      Well no... The thing about aliens visiting us is that it implies not only intelligence, but knowledge beyond ours. That's got major implications.

      It's raining rocks again... Damn alien microbes, THEY KNOW this shit pisses me off. Insurance rates will go through the roof by the hole they just made. Bastards are too small to see or I'd wring their little necks. Clever, very clever... Stingy too! Practically gotta dissect 'em in a lab to get anything out of 'em -- Won't even share any of their advanced space traveling technology with us. Enjoy your petri dish acid bath, suckers! Stuck up, know-it-alls... Serves 'em right.

  2. Unfortunate accident by Laxori666 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Unfortunately, in the process of confirming the origin of martian meteorites, the rover ran over a martian cat.