MSL: No Organics, Possible Perchlorate – Nothing Earthshaking
Curiosity Analyzes First Martian Soil Samples
“We have no definitive detection of Martian organics at this point, but we will keep looking in the diverse environments of Gale Crater,” said SAM Principal Investigator Paul Mahaffy of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. … SAM tentatively identified the oxygen and chlorine compound perchlorate. This is a reactive chemical previously found in arctic Martian soil by NASA’s Phoenix Lander. Reactions with other chemicals heated in SAM formed chlorinated methane compounds — one-carbon organics that were detected by the instrument. The chlorine is of Martian origin, but it is possible the carbon may be of Earth origin, carried by Curiosity and detected by SAM’s high sensitivity design.”
So the soil on Mars contains raw rocket propellant. It is solid oxidant but it can still help get a spaceship back to orbit.
I wonder if the perchlorate can be used to burn off impurities when refining metals?
I’m fine with no “earthshaking”, especially given that NASA or JPL didn’t promise “earthshaking”. The scientific method doesn’t promise a given result, but it does promise a way to refine experiments and a path toward experiments that might provide definitive answers. MSL is solidly operating under that regime. We also can’t forget that MSL still has a lot of work and a couple years, at least, of operation to go
Everyone recalibrate their MSL expectations! Well, probably not everyone has to. As Grotzinger stated in the NPR interview, the data from SAM will be one from the history books. It provides such a broad and fine set of measurements. I suspect that finding organics on Mt. Sharp won’t be so easy either.
It would be interesting to know how sensitively ChemCam can detect carbon. Does a layer of sediment on Mars have to be gushing with Carbon to be detected by ChemCam or could it be at quite low levels? If it can detect Carbon at low concentrations, that would go a long way towards directing MSL and SAM to the sample they are looking for. [SAM has tens of samples it can analyze, ChemCam has over 10,000 laser shots in its pocket]
Another possibility is that some other element – H or N, will show a stronger signal from ChemCam, indicating the possible presence of Carbon and Organics. It is quite possible and maybe likely that these sand drifts at Rocknest are very very old and represent a complete cross-section of materials eroded off the sides of Mount Sharp. We can literally count the layers and maybe the ‘geological’ martian epochs represented by these layers. Perhaps some upper limits on Carbon concentrations can be placed on the layers or epochs that are waiting to be sampled.
[while MSL’s tentative report is cool, Voyager and Ed Stone’s telecon today was even cooler. what an incredible mission – technologically and the data being returned about the edge of our Star System]
They did find carbon compounds.They don’t know yet where the carbon came from.Might be from Earth contamination on the instruments.Maybe comets.Maybe life.A lot of work to decide.
Again they said they landed on a stream bed.It looks to me that it is a Delta.The crater was a lake.Look at all the streams flowing into it.The water either formed a lake,evaporated or soaked into the ground.There is a chain of depressions they crossed.Half are distinct and the rest are not.To me this shows where the beach was.It may have been a big flood and the lake was short lived.The fan deposit they landed on may have been then formed out of the water.It does not look like floods.Streams are too small and are numerous.Looks like rain.
Hey,is that THE William(Will) Wheaton of Star Trek(Wesley) with a post over on another site?Pasadena.Cal..23 likes must think so.
The geological sources and sinks for this area where Rocknest resides are so many. It is likely that a spit of sand resting atop all of these sources represents a goulash, a complete blend from all or most, including eroding mountain sides nearby. There is certainly dilution of any one geological source within the Rocknest sample. Yes, Carbon from meteorites at trace levels is possible, or contamination. They need to analyze plenty more samples and SAM is up to the task.
Yeah I saw that Will Wheaton too 🙂 I’m pretty sure it’s not the same one since I looked at his FB but I thought it would have been cool for sure.
I grant that the press coverage of all this has been grossly overblown, but in my opinion, Prof. Grotzinger should have known better than to say the things he did. I’m all for trying to ramp up public enthusiasm, but his halting efforts in that regard may end up severely backfiring. Meanwhile, Curiosity goes on with its mission just the same, and is obviously a very fine piece of hardware.
As long as JPL gets favorable press coverage and funding, Grotzinger’s comments are already forgotten. He is a tenured faculty member at CalTech anyway, and doubt he was ever called to task about his comments.
NASA knows that future funding has no prayer if they can’t keep the “possibility of life” train going. If there is no life then it’s down to geology and that is where the public funding will end. No one is interested in geologic studies especially politicians handing out the checks.
Bingo Mark! Pushing for the “possibility” of life on Mars is far sexier than studying rocks as far as the politicians mindset goes and the scientists know this…it is old hat to them.
NASA has a vested interest in keeping the “possibility of life” train going. Without it all there is on Mars is future geologic studies which politicians, who are handing out the bucks, have no interest in.