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Mars Rover 'Curiosity' Team Reportedly Will Reveal Major Discovery In December

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posted on Nov, 20 2012 @ 05:47 PM
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Mars Rover 'Curiosity' Team Reportedly Will Reveal Major Discovery In December


www.huffingtonpost.com

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has apparently made a discovery "for the history books," but we'll have to wait a few weeks to learn what the new Red Planet find may be, media reports suggest.

The discovery was made by Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars instrument, NPR reported today (Nov. 20). SAM is the rover's onboard chemistry lab, and it's capable of identifying organic compounds — the carbon-containing building blocks of life as we know it.

SAM apparently spotted something interesting in a soil sample Curiosity's huge robotic arm delivered to the instrument recently.

"T
(visit the link for the full news article)



posted on Nov, 20 2012 @ 05:47 PM
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The article goes on to say :


The rover team won't be ready to announce just what SAM found for several weeks, NPR reported, as scientists want to check and double-check the results. Indeed, Grotzinger confirmed to SPACE.com that the news will come out at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union, which takes place Dec. 3-7 in San Francisco.

Source Huffington post


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," John Grotzinger, the principal investigator for the rover mission, says during my visit last week to his office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. That's where data from SAM first arrive on Earth. "The science team is busily chewing away on it as it comes down," says Grotzinger.

SAM is a kind of miniature chemistry lab. Put a sample of Martian soil or rock or even air inside SAM, and it will tell you what the sample is made of.

Grotzinger says they recently put a soil sample in SAM, and the analysis shows something earthshaking. "This data is gonna be one for the history books. It's looking really good," he says.

Grotzinger can see the pained look on my face as I wait, hoping he'll tell me what the heck he's found, but he's not providing any more information.

Source npr.org

So is this it? Are we finally going to hear evidence of life on Mars? Could this finally be the end of one of the largest questions that mankind has been searching for since we first gazed up at the stars?

Well i guess we only have a few short weeks to wait and find out. Im pretty excited at this point, i just hope it doesn't turn out to be something mundane. If it is news about life it would be awesome if they did it on Dec 21


What could they be announcing if its not evidence of life?

www.huffingtonpost.com
(visit the link for the full news article)


edit on 20-11-2012 by PhoenixOD because: (no reason given)



posted on Nov, 20 2012 @ 05:48 PM
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posted on Nov, 20 2012 @ 05:51 PM
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reply to post by Chamberf=6
 


You linked to a 1 word post? nice..

You can have a story in BAN and one other forum..thanks for your concern.



posted on Nov, 20 2012 @ 05:51 PM
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I'm calling it now...




posted on Nov, 20 2012 @ 06:01 PM
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If this is finaly what most of us have been waiting for, confirmation of (past) life on Mars, this would really make my day.


Now imagine all the wonderful scenarios we can come up with about the significance of the timing.

I'm guessing the speculating and our imaginations will be much more fun then the end result of the announcement though. =)



posted on Nov, 20 2012 @ 06:03 PM
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I wonder if it has anything to do with readings of methane gas, or other signature organic compounds that suggest that there was once life on Mars.

I can't imagine that it would be anything else. It would be hard to believe that they found any direct evidence, such as remains... or even photographic evidence that suggests anything important.

till then...



posted on Nov, 20 2012 @ 06:06 PM
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While I really hope it is something major I have been let down to me WAY too many times. Everyone is hoping for proof of alien life, but it will probably have something to do with soil composition or chemical structures found in martial soil.

But like most everyone, I will wait on pins and needles hoping it is something major!



posted on Nov, 20 2012 @ 06:22 PM
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reply to post by PhoenixOD
 


"We found mud."

NASA always fans the flames and makes a big deal out of the announcement and then it's something absolutely insignificant.



posted on Nov, 20 2012 @ 06:25 PM
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reply to post by PrplHrt
 


I agree.

Funny though how people are always saying that NASA would never admit to knowing about alien life yet in reality they are always jumping the gun at the slightest bit of evidence that could suggest we are not alone.



posted on Nov, 20 2012 @ 06:29 PM
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It's found Santa's grotto hasn't it?



posted on Nov, 20 2012 @ 06:30 PM
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reply to post by squarehead666
 


In a way, that is unfunny.



posted on Nov, 20 2012 @ 06:39 PM
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I think we all tend to "expect" an exciting result nowadays. However, I think a simple "yes, organic life exists on mars" on some level would suffice for me...........at least it's a start hey? Where we go from here who knows?

I have also heard on the Beeb this moring that ESA are ramping up for an expedition to Mars 2016-2018, not sure if that is literally true but that is what was said.



posted on Nov, 20 2012 @ 06:45 PM
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Speculation seems to center around the possibility that Curiosity has found organic compounds. Finding these would strengthen the possibility of life on Mars. The Viking probes in 1976 repeatedly recorded experimental results that seemed to indicate present life on Mars. This was doubted when no traces of organic compounds, which would be expected in a life-containing environment, were found. Finding organic compounds now would seem to indicate that life was discovered on Mars in 1976, as the head scientist of the life detecting experiments, Ira Levin, has claimed over all the years since. It has been suspected that the very tests intended to detect life destroyed organic compounds in the samples, when they were heated.



posted on Nov, 20 2012 @ 07:03 PM
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Originally posted by CaptainBeno
I think we all tend to "expect" an exciting result nowadays. However, I think a simple "yes, organic life exists on mars" on some level would suffice for me...........at least it's a start hey? Where we go from here who knows?

I have also heard on the Beeb this moring that ESA are ramping up for an expedition to Mars 2016-2018, not sure if that is literally true but that is what was said.


You're correct, here's an article about it:


After US space agency NASA, which has been at the forefront of exploring Mars, with a number of rovers crisscrossing the planet, including their newest, Curiosity, having spent a couple of months there, the European Space Agency (ESA) is going to launch missions to the Red Planet. The ESA has announced that it will be launching its own missions in a joint effort with Russia.
Member states of the ESA on Monday ratified an agreement that would see the space agency work alongside that of Russia for missions that are expected to take place in 2016 and 2018. The joint venture, dubbed ExoMars, was all but dead in the water, as a previous agreement between the ESA and America fell through, but now with the Russian involvement approved, it seems that it is all set to go.
Speaking about ExoMars, Frederic Nordlund, the head of international relations at ESA, said that if successful, the relationship between ESA and Russia could expand, with possible mission to Jupiter.............


Link to full article:

ESA, Russia Joint Missions to Mars......



posted on Nov, 20 2012 @ 07:11 PM
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reply to post by Ross 54
 


Just what is an organic compound?



posted on Nov, 20 2012 @ 07:26 PM
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Originally posted by PhoenixOD
reply to post by Ross 54
 


Just what is an organic compound?
The simple answer is that they are combinations of chemical elements, where one of the elements is carbon. This wikipedia article explains some of the exceptions and complications: link



posted on Nov, 20 2012 @ 07:36 PM
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reply to post by Ross 54
 


That would be a huge disappointment to me if that was all they are reporting on. Just finding the necessary ingredients to life does not mean that life existed.

You can put eggs ,flour, sugar and butter into a container and shake it but it doesn't not mean you are going to to get a complex perfectly decorated cake at the end of it. I want there to be life out there as much as the next guy but just finding the right chemicals isnt enough for me. Its a step in the right direction but its not a game changer as far as im concerned.



posted on Nov, 20 2012 @ 08:30 PM
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Probably a wrapper from KFC up there that some Martian threw away

edit on 20-11-2012 by scotsdavy1 because: (no reason given)



posted on Nov, 20 2012 @ 08:30 PM
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If organic compounds can be found so early in Curiosity's mission, it is reasonable to suppose that they exist widely on Mars. If it is probable that they also exist at the landing sites of the Viking probes, the major reason for disregarding the findings of life by these probes, some 36 years ago, is removed. I think the possibility that life was found on Mars all those years ago, and this is only now about to be realized, is remarkable.
It is also possible that if complex-enough organic compounds are found by Curiosity, the most reasonable explanation for them will be the presence of life on Mars.



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