Rovers on Mars

PASADENA, Calif., Sept. 11 (UPI) -- NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory made a big announcement Thursday. The Mars rover Curiosity made it to its long-term destination of Mount Sharp.
The mountain was the prime destination for the rover.

Mount Sharp is about the size of Mount Rainer and is in the center of the Gale Crater.

Over the weeks, months and years to come, Curiosity will analyze the layers of rock at Mount Sharp. That will build up a timeline for the shifts in climate and geology.

Curiosity will start the job by checking out rocks on the lower slopes of the mountain, near an outcrop nicknamed Pahrump Hills. It's a different route than the Curiosity team originally wanted the rover to take.

The team changed the rover's route through Pahrump Hills to reduce any potential wear and tear on Curiosity's already-battered wheels.

"The nature of the terrain at Pahrump Hills and just beyond it is a better place than Murray Buttes to learn about the significance of this contact. The exposures at the contact are better due to greater topographic relief," Curiosity project scientist John Grotzinger said.



Read more: http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2014/09/11/NASAs-Mars-rover-Curiosity-makes-it-to-Martian-mountain/8851410476287/#ixzz3D3t08Vr7

well finally. Now they can use some more of the gizmos they packed on this scooter.

When the rover detects microorganisms on Mars?

Not yet, Jack. Not yet.

Evidence of water on Mars.

Is there any doubt of this any more?

I'm already convinced that water existed on Mars in the past (in large quantities). And I'm fairly convinced that water still exists on Mars in the form of subsurface ice and possible pockets of underground liquid.

I'm convinced that young Mars was very similar to young Earth in many ways, and given the speed at which life arose on Earth I feel pretty confident that life arose on Mars as well. I'm not sure how far along it got, maybe it never got beyond single cells, but I wish NASA would get on with it and start looking directly for what we really want to find up there.

And oh by the way, what the hell is causing the Methane cycle up there? Mars may have life on it right now.

I have believed all along that tiny organisms are likely hiding somewhere on Mars. If they find any in my lifetime, I will be slightly surprised, however.

More Methane Plumes on Mars:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-finds-evidence-of-life-on-mars-9929510.html

The article also contained this quote:


Two Pints of water per cubic foot of soil seems like a lot. What exactly do they mean by "attached to minerals"? What type of minerals might they be talking about? Like Olivine or something?

In any case, I'm becoming more convinced that there's some type of microbial life on Mars. I assume it's under the surface, and there may be a lot of it.

water of crystallization or "hydration" is that which forms hydrtes in the makeup of the mineral crystal. When a crystal is heated to over 150C then the initial WoC begins to be released and the process of " forming an anhydrate"(like lime or cement) begins. At about 300C its all over and most all of the water is removed from the crystl lattice.
Another form is "connate water" which is actually water that's forced into the pores between sedimentary grains and then gets trapped and can slowly become WoC.
Lots of minerals can get carried along depending on the actual temperature of the water. On earth, wehere weve got high pressure water at temps like 600C, we can hve metals like gold and Platinum get trapped into water of crystallization of rock like Quartz. That's why we look for quartz as an initial indicator of finding easy deposits of gold.

Interesting.
Thanks.

I should think that any "captured" methane should betray its source. However, my chemistry (the one science in which i did fairly well) is now more than 40 years in my past.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/19/methane-mars-curiosity-rover_n_3956626.html

Presumably they will figure out if this has anything to do with life on Mars.

a little hunk they cpuldnt fit on the Rovers was a high accuracy/sensitivity trace gas analyzer. SO the Europeans will be launching the ExoMArs Trace Gas Analyzer package in 2016.
I was reading a bunch of techy stuff from JPL and the expected ratios of H/CH4 were higher than they wanted to "prove " that life was in the neighborhood.

Ya cant do just one thing.
Because our Jimmie Webb telescope overran budget, we had to drop out of the entire Trace GAs project. SO, when the Europeans wanted to add more crap on their orbiter, they needed a bigger rocket than Atlas , so now the Russians are involved with one of their bigass solid fuel rockets

That article is from September of 2013 and reflected low background traces. The more recent evidence points to plumes of methane which are localized in the atmosphere.

my point was the capabilities of the analyzer.

Yes, it's my understanding that this particular instrument is not optimally designed for analyzing atmospheric methane. None the less, it was my understanding from one of the NASA news briefs that the scientists at the table believed they could get a more detailed analysis from the existing instrumentation if they can capture another sample. And apparently there are certain characteristic ratios within the gas which could indicate the type of source.

One of the scientists on the panel I watched concluded that "Mars is active", whether that means geologically active or biologically active remains to be seen, but "active" all by itself is still very interesting.

A nice discussion video: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/56542725

The duration of the high methane event was around 2 months long. Also sudden increases and decreases.

That video was very long and it's full of information, but there's a section of commentary starting at 39:00 which is particularly interesting. One of the commentators talks about Gunflint Chert in explaining why they are going to be moving on with their exploration rather than gathering more detail about one of the areas they are sampling (concretions in the rocks).

These guys aren't saying it because they are being very cautious as good scientists should, but reading between the lines, I think they believe the methane plumes are biological in origin and they think the might be able to find microfossils in some of the rocks.

There's also a section at 24:00 where the same commentator gives a Star Trek analogy in explaining that Mars exploration is moving from an Inductive exploration methodology to a Deductive methodology, and I was glad to hear it. I think it's past time for these explorations to start looking directly for life rather than simply analyzing everything in an open fashion. To give an analogy, "If you lose your car keys in a big giant parking lot (at night), the first place you start looking is under the streetlight, because if they are there you're going to find them fast. You don't start exploring the darkness on your hands and knees until you've eliminated the obvious first." And I think that's where NASA should be with Mars now (and probably for over a year at least). So I'm happy to hear that they are starting to take a more deductive approach to their explorations.

Great stuff, Roswell, thanks . . .