Futurist Foresight

So there are organic compounds on Mars - maybe. Curiosity keeps on finding that out.

jtotheizzoe:

NASA Announces Mars Curiosity’s First Round of Soil Analysis

The take-away message? There’s some very interesting “maybes” but no definite “wows”.

A week or so after the misunderstanding about how “groundbreaking” these findings would actually be, NASA’s Mars rover team announced the results of their first soil sample analysis today. Remember that this rover is primarily an interplanetary geology lab, outfitted with the most advanced mineral chemistry instruments ever plopped down on another planet. So any hints of Mars one day being able to support life are going to start with eating a whole bunch of dirt.

Here’s a quick summary of the recent findings (good summaries at MSNBC and LA Times, too):

• These first few rounds of soil samples are useful, but one of their main purposes is to clean out the internal instruments and make sure the onboard, self-contained lab is working correctly. The laser-eye and other instruments are cool, but it’s the stuff inside that will most precisely determine the molecules and elements that exist in Martian soil.
• Curiosity processed a few scoops of coarse sand so far, which NASA compared to the big salt grains on a pretzel, from a region of Gale Crater called Rocknest. The machinery is all working fine, and any contaminating substances from Earth have probably been washed out by now.
• The rover has found hints of organic molecules (a huge family of carbon-based chemicals that are the precursors to anything that could later lead to life), as well as a chlorine chemical called “perchlorate” (also found by a previous rover in 2008). Normally perchlorate would be toxic, but super-tough microbes could eat it, mayyyyyyyybe … if they also found lots of carbon-based molecules. Which they only have hints of. Really just traces of organics. A “scoche”. Got it?
• Otherwise the soil was a pretty unremarkable mix of volcanic crystals, which is not surprising on Mars, since it’s home to many volcanoes, including the Solar System’s biggest. They also found traces of water, which we knew Mars had, and isn’t sufficient for life by itself (even Mercury has water ice!).
• The next step is to continue checking this data to make sure - absolutely sure - that the chlorine and carbon aren’t from Earth. Then they need to see if they are just random leftovers from old meteors or dust hitting the red planet. Then, and only then, will they be able to say whether these chlorine-carbon molecules are special.

In the end, this finding is a big “maybe”. But that should not disappoint anyone. Because these early days are about proving that the mission is ready to proceed and that everything is working correctly. And NASA gets an A+ on that. We have 2+ years of experiments, on all kinds of rocks, waiting for us!

So keep your “Curiosity” engaged …

(via abcstarstuff)

Waiting and waiting to hear what Curiosity`s big discovery on Mars is.

8bitfuture:

Mars discovery could be “one for the history books”.

NASA’s Curiosity rover has made a discovery that, if verified, could be huge news… apparently. NASA remain tight lipped about exactly what it is, until further testing verifies the data.

“This data is gonna be one for the history books,” John Grotzinger, the rover mission’s principal investigator, told NPR last week for a the buzz-inciting segment that aired today. ”It’s looking really good.”

What we do know is that the data comes from a soil sample analyzed by the rover’s Sample Analysis at Mars instrument, an on-board lab known as SAM, so if the data holds up to further testing it appears possible, and perhaps likely, that it is a discovery of an element on Mars previously thought not to exist on the Red Planet.

(via abcstarstuff)

Space Exploration: A visual look at Rover off-world mileage.

space-pics:

Distances Driven by Rovers on Other Worlds

http://space-pics.tumblr.com/

(via science-isinteresting)

Curiosity: Laser shots fired on Mars!

mothernaturenetwork:

NASA’s Mars rover zaps ‘Coronation’ rock with laser gun
The laser firing was primarily target practice for Curiosity, but early results suggest the high-tech instrument is working well.

Mars: Standing on Mars.

spacettf:

Curiosity on Mars: A Wall of Gale Crater
Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, MSSS

Explanation: If you could stand on Mars, what would you see? The above image is a digitally re-colored approximation of what you might see if the above Martian landscape had occurred on Earth. Images from Mars false-colored in this way are called white balanced and useful for planetary scientists to identify rocks and landforms similar to Earth. The image is a high resolution version of a distant wall of Gale Crater captured by the Curiosity rover that landed on Mars last week. A corresponding true color image exists showing how this scene actually appears on Mars. The robotic Curiosity rover continues to check itself over and accept new programming from Earth before it begins to roll across Mars and explore a landscape that has the appearance of being an unusually layered dried river bed.

NASA APOD 15 Aug 2012

Curiosity: Self-portrait.

sagan-naut:

ikenbot:

LOLZ #GPOY — Literally Me xoxo — Curiosity (via Mars Rover Curiosity: 1st Self Portait)

Next it’ll be duckface pictures.

(via anndruyan)

Rover: Distance records for rovers traveling on the surface of the Moon and Mars

universalnomad:

decaturjim:

Space Driving: How far have we come?

Opportunity is catching up an might pass them all! Go Oppy!

Postcard from Mars: “Wish you were here”

the-star-stuff:

NASA calls this newly released photo of Mars “the next best thing to being there”

This scene recorded from the mast-mounted color camera includes the rover’s own solar arrays and deck in the foreground, providing a sense of sitting on top of the rover and taking in the view. Its release this week coincides with two milestones: Opportunity completing its 3,000th Martian day on July 2, and NASA continuing past 15 years of robotic presence at Mars. Mars Pathfinder landed July 4, 1997. NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor orbiter reached the planet while Pathfinder was still active, and Global Surveyor overlapped the active missions of the Mars Odyssey orbiter and Opportunity, both still in service.

Click here for the full image in very, very high-resolution. [NASA | JPL]