CuriousMars: Rover’s SAM organic and CheMin Labs Outrun Computer Snafu For Extra Rock Analysis, SpaceRef
“Scientists with the $2.5 billion Mars rover Curiosity will reveal potentially historic discoveries about Mars next week in Washington D. C.”
“There are indications that the planned March 12 NASA Headquarters briefing could reveal the finding of organic carbon on Mars – “key ingredients” for life on Mars, as the space agency reinforced this week.”

24 replies on “Big Mars News Next Week?”

  1. Is it for real this time? Are they actually confirming it directly?

    I really don’t want to get my hopes up, only for this to be another “arsenic life” or “one for the history books” type of situation. 

    1.  They have said over and over that they can’t detect life. I think past life as well. I wish they’d just say “discoveries” instead of historic discoveries or one for the history books etc. when the actual news hasn’t been announced yet.

      1.  I didn’t say “are they confirming directly that it’s life“. I just didn’t want it to be another misunderstanding, like what happened last year.

      2. I just wish they’d announce things. Instead of announcing how awesome the announcement is going to be.

        2. I think the public gets very tired of NASA crying wolf!!! Seems to me to sound like just a gimmick to make the news to get more money to build rockets to nowhere.

          And NASA wonders why the public doesn’t take them seriously anymore!?!?!?!

          PS Anyone know when SPACEX will test its hopper again to help get the price down so one day we all can go to space?????

          1.  DTARS:

            Elon said a test would be soon. He also said: “It could be our first crater”. Maybe they’ll try for more altitude with an engine restart just to make things interesting.

            tinker

          2. It’s cool he said that. Glad there is room for failures since that can definitely happen!

          4. Apparently they were descending a little faster, using thrust to decelerate  just before touchdown.

  3. Okay, I’m ignorant. Why is organic carbon important on Mars? Is it because it might be a sign that life existed? Or is it a sign that life probably existed? Or is is it simply a sign that life might have existed or maybe not but it’s still interesting?

  4. Organic carbon is found in compounds of biogenic origin, right? Wouldn’t that be indirect proof for (past) life on Mars?

    1. Carbon is also found in coal, diamonds, calcium carbonate, etc.  These all generally form from plant and animal material, which would seem promising for indicators of life, but they could have also have formed from other carbon-containing non-living compounds, and in either event they would take millions of years to form, which I think we can say puts them outside our sphere of interest.

      So, one basic idea is that the presence of carbon does not, by itself, prove past life, but the complete absence of carbon would safely rule out life, as we know it, but proving that no carbon exists is not really doable.  All they can say is that no carbon has found (so far).  There is also life as we don’t know it to consider, like the sulfur-based deep ocean life forms that were discovered only a few decades ago living off thermal vents.

      More detailed determinations can be made by considering where carbon, and other elements and compounds, are found.  The nature of, and other constituents present in, the area where something is found also implies its history.  An obvious example is plant or animal fossils found embedded in sedimentary rock.  This clearly indicates that water was present at a location in the past, and the fossils there would be an encouraging find (but did they originate there or were they transported in from elsewhere on the planet?).

      Also, the presence and condition of rocks and stones in the sandstone area can show whether it was collected water, like a lake or sea, or running water, like a river or stream (stones in running water get rounded).  All of this basically comes down to applying the techniques of terrestrial geology, which is why some people will always insist we need humans on site to explore properly.

      There are lots of examples of non-organic carbon-bearing compounds, both above the Earth and within it.  These have nothing to do, at least directly, with the existence of life, past or present (and we can safely assume that the same applies on Mars).  Obvious examples are carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.

      So the answer to your question is, No, unfortunately the detection of carbon alone would not indicate life, past or present, on Mars.

      1.  So the answer to your question is, No, unfortunately the detection of
        carbon alone would not indicate life, past or present, on Mars.

        The beauty of these missions is that if they don’t detect anything, JPL asks Congress to send another probe.

        If they do detect anything, JPL asks Congress to send another probe.

    2. “Organic” carbon refers to a vast range of compounds in which carbon is bound to carbon, hydrogen, and/or oxygen. Such compounds are not necessarily produced by living organisms; the term “organic” is of historical origen, as discussed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

      1.  Dollars to donuts, they will announce the discovery of PAH molecules, a large class of organic hydrocarbons which are found, literally, everywhere we look. They are in interstellar clouds, the envelopes of evolved stars, (possibly) in comets, the residue from your barbecue, etc. They are often mentioned as “biological precursors” but the opposite is not necessarily true, i.e. finding them does not mean there was past life.

  5. Craig? Where does he get the historic discoveries from. Nobody relevant has ever said anything. There is a press conference, the second one this year, they said they will do this on a regular basis. This is a very bad crystal ball reading article of a person with 0% knowledge what will happen.

  6. Maybe they can find some work for our KSC security instead of issueing tickets! BTW- take the KSC centre director with you.  He spends too much time talking about the KSC speed limit why the rest of us search for a reason to keep KSC open.

  7. It’s rather inevitable that in the past a transit between two planets Earth and Mars happened. There was a quite a bit of research about potential survival of primitive microorganisms on meteorites and everything points that they would make it.

  8. I can appreciate that people get tired of announcements about press conferences and other events that offer no details.  It can be frustrating.  But there is another perspective; those of us who actively follow Mars exploration, because it is simply of interest to us, are saved a lot of time with these announcements.

    The alternative is to visit half a dozen badly-organized web sites every morning trying to discovering if anything new has happened or is on the horizon.  This doesn’t sound like a lot of work, but I find that it is, since the NASA and JPL web sites are every-growing accumulations of pretty much everything they’ve ever posted.  A Google! news search doesn’t work well for Mars either (my opinion) because there’s just so much stuff that gets returned, no matter how carefully you construct your search string (since it just ignores all the syntax anyhow, as do the NASA sites).

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