What Did Curiosity Find On Mars

MARS CURIOSITY

NASA'S CURIOSITY ROVER ON MARS HAS FOUND SOMETHING THAT HAS RESEARCHERS VERY EXCITED. THE SCIENTISTS ARE HOLDING OFF ON THEIR ANNOUNCEMENT UNTIL THEY HAVE DOUBLE CHECKED THE DATA, BUT NPR GOT THE SPECULATION GOING YESTERDAY WHEN THEY REPORTED THAT CURIOSITY'S PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR, JOHN GROTZINGER, WAS QUOTED SAYING THE TEAM MIGHT HAVE SOME VERY BIG NEWS SOON.

A s we re-posted yesterday on our Facebook page, NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars has found something that has researchers very excited. The scientists are holding off on their announcement until they have double checked the data, but NPR got the speculation going yesterday when they reported that Curiosity's principal investigator, John Grotzinger, was quoted saying the team might have some very big news soon.

The exciting results are coming from an instrument in the rover Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM). "We're getting data from SAM as we sit here and speak, and the data looks really interesting," Grotzinger said during NPR's 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 miniature chemistry lab on-board Curiosity. It samples Martian soil or rock or even air inside SAM, and calculates what the sample is made of. For the past few weeks, rover Curiosity has been busily scooping dirt from a sandy ridge in a geologically interesting location called "Rocknest."

This image shows part of the small pit or bite created when NASA's Mars rover Curiosity collected its second scoop of Martian soil at a sandy patch called "Rocknest. Image Source: NASA/JPL

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.

SAM might have found evidence for some organic material, or it could have found nothing. A nil result would be scientifically interesting, too, because it would help round out the history of Gale Crater. But it's safe to assume that Curiosity's principal investigator probably would not describe a nil result as one for the history books.

The case for liquid water flowing on Mars is already well established, so it also unlikely that discovering evidence for water being present there in the past is causing the excitement.

The European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft found this patch of water ice in an unnamed crater on Mars in 2005.

Image Source: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)

What do you think they have found?

SOURCE "NPR"

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