Mars Rover Team Plans Major Announcement

[blobrana]

Hum,
Another  announcement?

http://www.thekcrachannel.com/technology/2941238/detail.html

[cecilia]

conclusive evidence that its landing site on the Meridiani Planum used to be drenched in water.

WooH HooH!!
I'm packin' my bags for beautiful scenic Mars!!!!
 :banana:

[SyrTran]

cecilia wrote:
WooH HooH!!
I'm packin' my bags for beautiful scenic Mars!!!!
 :banana:

Yet another Amiga user lost to a more viable alternative. ;-) :lol:

[blobrana]

 Hehe,
I think he was lost long ago....

Anyway, NASA has scheduled the news conference for Tuesday, March 23 at 9.00 UT, in Washington to announce what it calls a "major scientific finding" made by the Opportunity rovers' mission.

My WILD-guess is it will probably be about whether the water that once existed at the Opportunity rover landing site was groundwater or  a lake/ocean.

The announcement will be made at NASA Headquarters and broadcast live on NASA TV.






[have you seen what`s inside a Dalek?]

[bloodline]

They're not going to announce they've found another rock again, are they?


Daleks have Kaleds inside :-D

[blobrana]

Hum,
So Opportunity is resting on what was once a salty, rippling body of water.
And three billion years ago it was the shoreline of a salty sea... nice!
The lander had explored and photographed rock layers that could only have been created by flowing liquid...

I can sleep easy tonight, now...






(er, Martian fossils?)

[Karlos]

If evidence for ancient martian seas is found, I wonder if some clue to the age at which the last water froze or evaporated away into the thinning atmosphere will be found?

[KennyR]

Bad news for the theory that life develops always as soon as the conditions are right. Warm, liquid water saturated in mineral salts for perhaps millions of years, yet no fossils, no chalk, no signs of life ever having been there. So maybe life on Earth really is a massive fluke.

[PMC]

I can see next week's statement right now:

"...The Mars Opportunity Rover has finally located the British Beagle 2 lander.  The Rover is currently deploying a set of jump leads and a tow rope..."

:-D

[PMC]

I can see next week's statement right now:

"...The Mars Opportunity Rover has finally located the British Beagle 2 lander.  The Rover is currently deploying a set of jump leads and a tow rope..."

:-D

[blobrana]

@KennyR
ER, this is good news...

It now means we dont have to consider contaminating the lifeforms there and e can now litter and exploit the place ...

No, seriously these are conditions that may have been ideal to early life forms on the early earth...
(er, chalk needs calcium, not much around there), and there seems to be a lack of silicate (sand) too... but,
Nasa is now seriously thinking about looking for fossils. the current instruments are too crude to see microbial life, (martian dinosaur footprints perhaps). Another mission planned in 2009 (?) will surly try to look for past life on this beach...
I my self believe that we will find life INSIDE the rocks deep-down (2 - 30km)...er, just like the earth....






[who will rub this oil into my back]

[Karlos]

PMC wrote:
I can see next week's statement right now:

"...The Mars Opportunity Rover has finally located the British Beagle 2 lander.  The Rover is currently deploying a set of jump leads and a tow rope..."

:-D

That would be awesome :lol:

[Karlos]

blobrana wrote:
@KennyR
ER, this is good news...

It now means we dont have to consider contaminating the lifeforms there and e can now litter and exploit the place ...

No, seriously these are conditions that may have been ideal to early life forms on the early earth...
(er, chalk needs calcium, not much around there), and there seems to be a lack of silicate (sand) too...

I recall from my prebiotic chemistry option that complex silicates are thought to have been instrumental in the development of life. They were the first catalysts for reactions long since replaced by emzymes and are also thought to have been inorganic precursors to "template memory" such as RNA/DNA.

[blobrana]

DOH!,
Hum, well spotted.

That idea seems to be at the forefront of current thinking.
But i suppose this does not mean that it is the ONLY route to creating long  (self replicating) molecule chains...
There were crystalline structures (er, the holes) that were observed by the rovers...and we know that there is loads of sulphur and hydrogen (in water) there.
The very early earth would have resembled the moon IO ,according to recent studies, and that doesn`t seem that nice a place to grow-up in...

Plus, it could be that once life has arisen SOMEWHERE in our galaxy, the time scale to colonise/infect the ENTIRE MILKY-WAY may be as little as a million years...

The method of transportation would be on rocks blasted away from planetary impacts and on tiny dust particles trailing behind the planet (and lost in space)...

This link may be of interest to others , about meteorite ALH84001 : )http://www.users.muohio.edu/mcmahosp/ (the mars meteorite from the Allan Hills ice field in the Antarctic )

And if we find nothing...
The real puzzle maybe is, why life is it not there already...