Mars Mission: Curiosity - Page 55

Scientists working on NASA's six-wheeled rover on Mars have a problem. But it's a good problem.

They have some exciting new results from one of the rover's instruments. On the one hand, they'd like to tell everybody what they found, but on the other, they have to wait because they want to make sure their results are not just some fluke or error in their instrument.

It's a bind scientists frequently find themselves in, because by their nature, scientists like to share their results. At the same time, they're cautious because no one likes to make a big announcement and then have to say "never mind."

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.

On November 21 2012 07:54 ElMeanYo wrote:
They found gold minerals on mars. Muling them as we speak.

On November 21 2012 08:36 Ender985 wrote:
I don't think they would make an announcement of an announcement of life on mars. They would just probably go WTF GUYS WE FOUND LIFE ON MARS!!!!111

So my money is on something water related, like they found a rock with an unusual high percentage of water which might indicate that there are subterranean (submartian?) rivers or something to that effect.

On November 21 2012 13:55 On_Slaught wrote:
For the history books? For a scientist to say that makes me giddy with excitement to see what they got.