What "Earth-Shaking" Discovery Has Curiosity Made on Mars? 544
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."
Obviously they are trying to build hype (Score:5, Insightful)
I predict that the results are accurate, but not nearly as exciting as NASA is trying to get us to believe.
Re:Obviously they are trying to build hype (Score:5, Funny)
>> This data is gonna be one for the history books
It turns out that new improved Choco-Pops are now more chocolatey than ever!
Re:Obviously they are trying to build hype (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks to the newest data from Curiosity, NASA has finally determined, with 99% confidence, why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
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If they're so smart, they would have been able to finally find out how many licks it takes to get to the tootsie roll center of a Tootsie Pop.
Re:Obviously they are trying to build hype (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Obviously they are trying to build hype (Score:5, Funny)
Lots of folks posting from CO and WA?
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This is at least the 10th response related to food. You guys hungry or something?
No, just pissed off that Twinkies are going the way of the Dodo. Damned things last forever, and if you eat enough of them, the preservatives oughta keep YOU alive forever too.
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I heard they were feeling happy and wanted to go for a walk.
Re:Obviously they are trying to build hype (Score:5, Funny)
The timing of the Hostess bankruptcy/closing announcement was a bit odd. It's a Washington company - you'd think they might want to wait and see whether marijuana legalization could resurrect their business!
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I predict that the results are accurate, but not nearly as exciting as media is trying to get us to believe.
Fixed that for you.
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I predict that the results are accurate, but not nearly as exciting as media is trying to get us to believe.
Fixed that for you.
No... The original was correct too.
Re:Obviously they are trying to build hype (Score:5, Insightful)
Totally this.
It's probably going to be along the lines of evidence that there might have been some specific trace element at one point which may indicate the existence of water or microbacterial life at one point. In other words, something that is both a major discovery and extremely boring to the large majority of the population (including geeks) at the same time.
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The previous rovers established existence of past water.
Showing the existence of past microbial life on Mars would be a big deal.
Given that it was found in soil instead of rock and how early in the mission it is suggest it is current microbial life that they found.
Microbacterial would probably not be the right term for life on Mars. Bacteria is on of the three domains of life on Earth. Life on Mars would have its own domains (unless life on Earth originated on Mars)
Re:It better be good this time. (Score:4, Funny)
Apparently you're just a normal American.
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"Life on Mars" would be huge.
"Possible evidence of there maybe once being life of Mars, or not" would be who-gives-a-fuck.
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Aliens? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm on the edge of my seat... (Score:3)
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.
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Also, whoever tagged the article with the misspelled "curiousity"... great job.
That's the Martian spelling.
It's also common enough that its use as a tag can be justified (although it was most likely done in error, since there was no "curiosity" tag)
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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.
Now honestly, even if it's organic matter that made it over with the rover, if it's reproducing and surviving on the planet, that's plenty interesting news.
Re:I'm on the edge of my seat... (Score:4, Funny)
Earth-shaking (Score:4, Funny)
Earth-shaking? Well then it is obvious.
They found evidence of an earth quake. On Mars !!
The Chances of anything coming from Mars (Score:5, Funny)
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
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Million to one happens 9 out of 10 times!
water (Score:5, Interesting)
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!
SAM Launch (Score:4, Funny)
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If we're thinking of the same organisation, it's "Hamas". The S is part of the acronym and it doesn't get capitalised anywhere I've seen. Upshot, the rockets belonging to Hamas would be Hamas', or possibly Hamas's rockets, depending on your preference for possessive nouns where the singular already ends with an S.
No criticism intended, just information.
Please... (Score:5, Funny)
"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."
Chocolate (Score:4, Funny)
They have found chocolate. At least that's what I've found on the surface of every single Mars I've eaten.
Unsuprisingly cautious (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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So much for checking the data first (Score:4, Insightful)
Way to go, Grotzinger. You've just totally undermined NASA's effort to keep their mouths shut until they've carefully checked the data.
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Nope. He didn't announce it, all he did is put his credibility on the line.
Ocean mineral (Score:5, Insightful)
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Are you serious? Because calcium bentonite would be a huge discovery. It's formed out of microscopic fossil shells. Curiosity's SAM instrument has a microscope and could probably send us images. If they show us microfossils on Mars then hell yes, it's a world-shaking announcement.
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Primitive DNA (Score:3)
And then watch how fast and quickly they boost NASA's budget.
Obligatory... (Score:3)
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They finally found Marvin's Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator
Lightspeed (Score:4, Insightful)
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!
Mirrored exploration (Score:5, Funny)
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?
Either it's life or overeager techies (Score:5, Insightful)
"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 [nasa.gov], it is likely that they got a successful result from a Viking-style experiment [wikipedia.org] 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.
Re:Either it's life or overeager techies (Score:5, Informative)
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
That didn't get in to the history books because that didn't happen. Spirit got stuck in sand. Very dry sand. The Phoenix lander at the pole saw visible water ice after scraping the surface with a tool, only to see that ice sublimate. Some satellite evidence hints at possible subsurface flows of brine, but that has yet to be confirmed.
You should already know! (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Gate plz (Score:5, Funny)
Please be a Stargate. Please be a Stargate.
(sorry, but i still miss that show)
They found... (Score:3)
... Waldo!
Unobtanium! (Score:4, Funny)
Earth shattering? (Score:4, Interesting)
my prediction (Score:4, Funny)
There may have been liquid water in that very spot at some point in the last 50,000,000 years!
There 5.4% nitrogenation of the oil. (Score:5, Funny)
YOU MANIACS (Score:3)
What's exciting to Grotz may not be ... (Score:4, Insightful)
I predict (Score:5, Funny)
A skull! ....of a dinosaur.... ...in a space suit!
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A skull! ....of a dinosaur.... ...in a space suit!
Where's the 'Grandiose' moderation when you need it ?!
Carbonates? (Score:3)
Life or GTFO (Score:3)
What we'll probably get: Methane is being generated in the soil...probably...with no idea of the actual origin.
Not Exciting to the General Public (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Not Exciting to the General Public (Score:5, Informative)
The ketchup comment was in response to Zare's 1996 claims of organic compounds on meteorites found in Antarctica. NASA's discovery is something different.
Doesn't anybody here have any imagination? (Score:3)
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.
I'm guessing this... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I really hope... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I really hope... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I really hope... (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:I really hope... (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
Re:I really hope... (Score:5, Funny)
Like http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/31/Marvinthemartain.jpg [wikimedia.org] ?
Re:I really hope... (Score:5, Funny)
Where's the kaboom? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I really hope... (Score:5, Funny)
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Maybe they found the other end of Archimedes' lever.
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I was thinking of A figurehead from an 18th century sailing ship [wikia.com]. Or maybe they found some 5 airplanes [wikipedia.org].
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Curiosity rover confirms: Mars soil tastes like dirt!
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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.
Re:I really hope... (Score:4, Interesting)
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)
Re:I really hope... (Score:5, Informative)
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".
Re:I really hope... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:I really hope... (Score:5, Informative)
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".
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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).
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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.
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Well, there's always the Sabatier process [wikipedia.org], 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.
Re:I really hope... (Score:5, Funny)
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
Re:I really hope... (Score:5, Funny)
I do not like green cheese, SAM I am.
Re:I really hope... (Score:5, Funny)
That's nothing, I could tell you what the Milky Way is made of.
Re:I really hope... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's nothing, I could tell you what the Milky Way is made of.
Here's the list of ingredients [xkcd.com].
Re:I really hope... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:I really hope... (Score:5, Funny)
Uh no... Mars bars >.
Re:I really hope... (Score:5, Funny)
Same thing, different configuration options.
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Same thing, different configuration options.
Problem is, they're compile-time, not run-time.
Re:I really hope... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I really hope... (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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I bet they've found Sandkings [wikipedia.org]
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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 [goatse.cx]
Re:"Earth"-shaking? (Score:5, Funny)
Where is the earth-shattering kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom.
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No boom today. Boom tomorrow.
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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.