"Curiosity's middle name is patience"
So, is Curiosity its first or last name? Inquiring space junkies want to know!
NASA says that no, it hasn't found definite proof that Mars has its own organic compounds, but that it has found some very interesting indications that need to be checked. Curiosity analysis Everyone just hold your horses (click to enlarge) At a press conference on Monday morning at a meeting of the American Geophysical …
While the science is certainly interesting , I can't help thinking Nasa are missing a trick by not sending rovers to the obvious "tourist" locations such as Olymous Mons or the huge canyon system on mars. If you want to keep the general public interested (and hence keep the money coming in) you need something a bit more interesting than maybe possibly some chemicals in some dirt. And before anyone shouts me down as some lightweight luddite may I remind them that the public fascination with the Pioneer and Voyager probes didn't come from the raw science, it came from the pictures.
In 1976, Viking's results hinted of organics, but gave no direct evidence, nor explained why there was no direct evidence. The hits were exciting because that was a predicted scenario for organics. It was also criticized because Mars organics weren't the ONLY thing that would give Viking's result.
This conflict caused estimates to balloon for pre-landing Mars work. The USA probably would have never gone to the Moon at all IF they used this same approach for the Apollo activity.
In 2008, Phoenix explained Viking's results. Phoenix confirmed a substantial presence of perchlorate (Chlorine/Oxygen salts) that would have caused Viking's analysis to destroy organics. Curiousity was tweaked to make next-steps with the perchlorate issue.
We really need to find organic Carbon-based results. I would expect NASA to tread carefully if they get close to a key result.
Curiousity has already spent a month at this location. Perhaps there are 'better' next-locations.
Despite the censoring on images that NASA/JPL as well other military space agencies perform there has been plenty of pictures in which alien lifeforms, alien spaceships and alien buildings could be seen.
It's kinda silly that the scientists on Earth are so ignorant to follow like a bunch of sheep with no brain at all whatever pathetic lie NASA can come up with.
>With "plenty of pictures" surely you could oblige us with one little link as an amuse-bouche?
Careful, you're using French. They don't do none of that goddarn cheese eatin' surrender monkey talk in the midwest! In fact they barely do English....
Don't worry, I did a little Googling and found the image the OP was on about. It really is quite amazing why this hasn't been widely reported by anyone other than zany conspiracy theorists.
This was a letdown.
I'm making a note here: SLIGHT SUCCESS.
We found chlorine organics in the Rocknest.
JPL Science
We do what we must
because we can.
At the pace we deem correct.
Except if someone talks fast.
But there's no sense crying over every mistake.
You must keep on sampling even if there's debate.
And the Science gets done.
And you use the lasgun
On the rocks that might harbour live.
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If that's the best cover story NASA can cook up in two weeks of desperate trying then it clearly shows they've stumbled across something so big that they're more scared than confused, desperately scrabbling to keep the free people of Earth from accessing the god like powers now enjoyed only by the Moon Nazis
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_C._Hoagland#The_Norwegian_spiral for loads of stuff that makes "normal" Mars conspiracy theories seem very humdrum. I'd have taken Romney's space supremacy claims a lot more seriously if only I'd realised then that "Obama had clearly accepted that any attempt to return to the Moon would be thwarted by the superior technology of the Nazis in space."
You say that, but I am genuinely confused as to how they managed to take this photo. I can't see any way they could get this angle. Hell, the mast on which the camera is mounted is clearly in the photo some distance away! It's as if they came across a huge mirror on a stick.
I'm guessing it's a mix of surface photos and some very good 'rover CGI that someone has painstakingly stitched together for some purpose... can anyone enlighten me?
These are the simplest kinds of 'organic' chemicals - a single carbon atom with a variety of covalently bound functional groups. These can easily be (and have almost certainly have been) produced by mundane physical processes.
If they find polypeptides, chains of nucleic acids be impressed. Even an effing long chain fatty acid would cause one to raise an eyebrow - but this? Nothing to see here - move on.
Actually, finding these molecules is very significant, as, if verified, it is proof that basic "biological" precursor molecules are created in-situ in a non-terrestrial environment, giving validity to quite a number of "how did things get started" hypotheses.
Yes, there are molecules that in and of themselves are much more indicative to life as *we* know it than this stuff, but it is a great find nonetheless, and not something to sneeze at.
...not something to sneeze at.
Though if you did, whatever bacteria you're carrying around might find they have something to eat. Unchallenged by any other organism, they would multiply explosively.
Next thing you know, you've got an entire gelatinous civilization pulsating away, all born from your nosegold.
So they have found something of interest which may or not be of interest which may or not be from Mars and may or may not be organic compounds but which is most certainly not groundbreaking, awe inspiring, eye opening, mouth wateringly good. Well woohoo! Still, we got a robot on Mars and that's the main thing.
Wow, that announcement changed history! possible organic material found on mars!
They recently discovered ICE on Mercury, and in that ice was.........Organic materials!
Nothing "Earth shattering" or history making there.
Honestly, I think these scientist get too excited about some of the simplest things.
All they have done is confirmed what one of the first probes (back in the 70's was it?) had found.
Look, if you find a fossil, maybe even something that resembles that thing they found in the martian rock back in the 90's, let me know.
For such a dry, dusty planet it's a little surprising at how clean the Curiosity is, apart from the wheels.
Why would the dust stick to the wheels if the climate is dry anyway ?
This is obviously a very wide angle lens which must be sitting on a pole about 2m above ground level. ( Slightly lower than the height of Curiosity itself) Otherwise we would be able to see the top of the squarish box on top of the shaft on the left hand side.
Judging by the tire tracks on the bottom right hand side, it may have been Curiosity the planted the camera on a pole, drove back a little then did a little modeling for itself.
How was that camera fired, remote control ? What kind of camera was it ? How did they retrieve the images from the camera ? How do they manage to keep the camera batteries charged for so long ?
The whole thing seems to be pretty evenly lit up. Judging by the shadows of the wheels the Sun must be almost at 12:00. There is no lens flare, does the camera/lens have a hood. How do they manage to calibrate fstops and exposure on Mars ? Does the camera transmit all of that data in real time or is everything on fully automatic.
How did they manage to get the Curiosity bang in line with the Camera lens. Or is this a video camera instead of a stills camera....
Dust comes and goes on Mars: big dust storms deposit it, other winds remove it again - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleaning_event and the photos of the Spirit rover.
It isn't immediately surprising that dust will stick to the wheels more than elsewhere - dry powders do clump, especially with compression (try playing with flour or baking powder) - and of course the different materials on the rover will have different "stickability" (probably the solar panels are as low-stick as possible with coatings or electrostatic charge, etc)
The self-portrait is described by Nasa: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia16239.html
In essence it's a photo stitch from a camera at the tip of the sampling arm. So no problems with power, data, etc. The uniformity of lighting probably comes from (a) Mars has a lot of light scattering from the large amount of suspended dust (also a pretty pink-ish sky) and (b) this is a heavily manipulated image - as well as selecting, aligning, and cropping the photos it's safe to assume that effort was put into correcting exposure and dynamic range (that's using "manipulation" in a very positive sense: removing artifacts from the raw data to enable the useful info to shine, (c) as with any pre-eminent science gear that camera is being driven by a team of very bright very experienced people who think carefully about every action (c.f. me with a camera - just blaze away and hope that some of the shots aren't too duff)
How was that second photograph, the one of Curiosity showing the scoops from nearby the rover, taken? Who or what is holding the camera? Is there a second robot with a camera following Curiosity around taking pictures of it, or have NASA contracted with some Martian cameraman to take pictures? Inquiring minds want to know.
In the "graph" picture, it mentions that it's indeterminate that the carbon from the chlorinated carbons could be martian or terrestrial and that further analysis is required.
I thought carbon is carbon. How would you tell if it was from Earth or not? "Made in China" labels on the protons?