Was there Life on Mars?

Today, November 20, 2012, a discovery was made that N.A.S.A. is not ready to reveal to the public, but Curiosity chief scientist, John Grotzinger stated, “This data is gonna be one for the history books. It’s looking really good”. They say that they are delaying their revelation to the public until they have an opportunity to check and recheck their data, but that they will be revealing this exciting news at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union, which takes place December 3-7 in San Francisco.

This discovery was made by using Curiosity’s Sample Analysis at Mars instrument, which is controlled by a robotic arm. Sam is Curiosity’s onboard chemistry lab, and it is capable of identifying organic compounds, which are the carbon containing building blocks of life. Sam obviously has detected something very interesting and exciting while taking and analyzing samples, and the excitement that is being presented suggests that whatever was found will not only answer all the questions we have had about life on Mars, but will change the way we view the planet that we have speculated about for centuries. It is exciting to know that we may finally have the answers that we have searched so long for.

This has been a great year for the scientific community and for the American people. We will be waiting for this exciting announcement with great anticipation. Congratulations N.A.S.A. on your new discovery, and thank you for all your hard work and dedication to this mission.

As always, thank you to my loyal readers, and if you enjoyed this article, please be sure repost the article to your Facebook or Twitter page so others can enjoy it. I wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. I hope you have a great day with your family and friends.

A special thank you goes out to Space.com  the facts for this article.

"Of the hundreds of places we could have landed, we've chosen the best place to find habitable environmen. Now we'll see if we find one."

If you think that people who believe in the possibility of extraterrestrial life are kooks, you probably haven't talked to a NASA space scientist in a while.

At a news conference on Thursday, Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars program for NASA, said that when the agency's newest Mars rover blasts off for the red planet on Nov. 25, one of its charges will be to discover if the planet contains (or contained) the ingredients of life.

"This mission will bridge the gap scientifically from our understanding of the planet being warmer and wetter than we probably believed, to not seeking life itself, but seeking signs of life," he said.

He reiterated: "This is not a life-seeking mission."

Think about the mission this way: If NASA were going to Mars looking for signs of pancakes instead of signs of life, on this trip it would be looking for flour and eggs, not pancake crumbs -- and definitely not pancakes.

In an interview with The Times, Joy Crisp, deputy project scientist for the Mars Science Laboratory, said the rover will be looking for organic molecules and isotopic signatures that might indicate that life did exist at one time on Mars.

"If this step pans out, if we do find organic compounds and we think that the rocks look likely to preserve evidence of life, then we will know better what to send next," she said. "It is kind of an intermediate step."

Asfor the rover itself -- called Curiosity -- it's 6-feet-tall, weighs roughly 2,000 pounds, and is the most complex machine to be placed on another planet, according to McCuistion.

The rover has high-definition cameras, a laser eye, and a weather station to help scientists monitor the environment. It also has the ability to sample rocks and soils, and a drill that will allow it to capture material from inside rocks.

"This is a Mars scientist dream machine," said Ashwin Vasavada, Mars Science Laboratory deputy project scientist, at the news event.

But the rover won't be landing on the planet for a while. Curiosity is scheduled to leave Earth on Nov. 25 (the day after Thanksgiving), but it won't be landing on Mars until August 2012.

During the news conference, Vasavada was asked how likely he thought it was that Curiosity would find evidence of life on Mars.

"That would be in the realm of speculation," he said, "but the reason we are excited about Mars is that when we look into the distant past, there is evidence of rivers flowing and lakes and we are trying to find out if they are habitable environments."

MISSION TO MARS: UNMANNED CRAFT TO LAND IN MARS CRATER IN 2012

Nasa has also announced details of plans to determine if Mars has or ever had the ingredients for life. A robotic science laboratory, being prepared for a November 25 launch, will land in August 2012 near a mountain in a crater on the planet most like Earth in the solar system.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2018477/Nasa-ordered-astronauts-asteroid-15-years.html#ixzz1T8Iuhs6r

The announcement came after the final curtain fell on Nasa's 30-year-old space shuttle programme with Thursday's landing of Atlantis at the Kennedy Space Center.

A detailed blueprint of Nasa's follow-on space exploration strategy is still pending and many Americans fear the demise of the shuttle program means the U.S. is relinquishing its leadership in space. President Barack Obama has said the objective is to build new spaceships that can travel beyond the shuttle's near-Earth orbit and eventually send astronauts to asteroids, Mars and other destinations in deep space.

At a Cape Canaveral briefing on Wednesday, Nasa officials will discuss preparations for the agency's upcoming Juno mission to Jupiter.

The unmanned spacecraft, set for launch in August, is expected to reach Jupiter's orbit in July 2016 and should further understanding of the solar system's beginnings by revealing the origin and evolution of its largest planet.

Among the most sophisticated probes in the offing, the plutonium-powered roving Mars Science Lab, nicknamed Curiosity, is being prepared for launch in November.

Twice as long and five times heavier than previous Mars rovers, Curiosity packs ten science instruments, including two for on-site chemical analysis of pulverized rock.

With it, scientists hope to learn if Mars has or ever had the organics necessary for life - at least life as it appears on Earth.

Scientists spent five years mulling 60 possible landing sites before narrowing the list to four: Eberwalde Crater, Mawrth Vallis, Holden Crater and - the winner - Gale Crater, which sports a stunning three mile-high mountain of rocks rising from the crater floor. That's about twice the height of the stack of rocks exposed in the Grand Canyon.

Analysis from Mars-orbiting spacecraft shows the base of Gale Crater's mountain includes both clays and sulphate salts, the only site among the four finalists with both types of materials available.

Scientists do not know how the mountain formed, but it may be the eroded remnant of sediment that once completely filled the crater.

Though Curiosity's mission is scheduled to last two years, scientists hope the rover will live past its warranty.

One of a pair of Mars rovers that arrived for concurrent three-month surveys in January 2004 is still working. Its twin succumbed to the harsh Martian environment only last year.

They returned evidence that Mars was once far wetter and warmer than the dry, cold desert that exists today.

Scientists who study the Red Planet say they whole-heartedly approve of the choice of Gale Crater as the landing site for NASA's next Mars rover.

NASA's next Mars rover will land at the foot of a layered mountain inside the planet’s Gale Crater.
CREDIT: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory


The space agency announced the decision to go with Gale today (July 22), after a five-year process that originally considered about 60 possible sites. NASA narrowed the list down to four choices in 2008, then revealed last month that it was deciding between two finalists: Gale and another crater called Eberswalde.

Gale is 96 miles (154 kilometers) wide, and a 3-mile-high (5-km) mountain rises from its center. The crater also harbors clays and sulfate salts, signs that liquid water flowed in the area long ago.


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The car-size Curiosity rover— the centerpiece of NASA's $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission — will cruise around Gale beginning in August 2012. Its main mission is to assess whether the crater is, or ever was, capable of supporting microbial life. [Mars Explored: Landers and Rovers Since 1971 (Infographic)]

Via email, SPACE.com asked several scientists with extensive experience studying Mars, and/or the prospect of Martian life, what they thought about NASA's choice. By and large, they were excited about Gale and the potential of Curiosity's mission:

Maria Zuber (geophysicist at MIT in Cambridge, Mass.): To be honest, I am thrilled with the decision to land in Gale Crater.

Geologically, the site is complex. But given the mission objectives, that is a good thing, as it contains much of what one would like to observe and measure to assess habitability and biological potential, and how these may have changed over time.

The Curiosity payload and the ruggedness of the rover are well suited to address the science objectives at this site.

Mark Lemmon (planetary and atmospheric scientist at Texas A&M University in College Station): I love the Gale site. It is exciting for science and for exploration. The rover will be able to explore sedimentary rock layers that have been altered by water. It will do this while moving through picturesque canyons and with a view of a 5-km tall mound. [Gale Crater FAQ: Mars Landing Spot for Next Rover Explained]

With such a singular mound of sedimentary rocks, the view will combine aspects of seeing Mt. Rainier and the Grand Canyon. Along the way, the rover will see clays from a wetter Mars and could drive to where those clays meet the sulfates deposited during the drying out of the area.

As an atmospheric scientist, I am also looking forward to watching the seasons at the site. It was the site best positioned for seeing water-ice clouds that form every northern summer, when Mars is farthest from the sun.

All of the finalist sites were good, but Gale seemed to be the one that had the biggest story about Mars' history to tell.

Peter Smith (planetary scientist at the University of Arizona in Tucson): Gale Crater is an excellent site that allows exploration in the truest sense.

The challenges and rewards of driving a nuclear-powered rover up a 5-km mountain over several years will test the abilities of both the science and engineering team. I am sure that they are up to the task and look forward to the results.

Chris Carr (engineer and research scientist at MIT in Cambridge, Mass.): Any of the final four options (Gale Crater, Eberswalde Crater, Holden Crater or Mawrth Vallis) originally considered by NASA would have been great (that is why those sites made it to the top four).

One challenge for Gale Crater is the need to traverse a significant distance to reach the central mound of the crater, where the rover could study the stratigraphic layers of (presumed) clays and sulfates.

These deposits are very interesting, because on Earth such deposits can preserve organic materials over geologic timescales. For example, some lipids can be preserved for up to billions of years.

Chris McKay (astrobiologist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.): I am happy with the decision to go with Gale Crater.

SPACE.com: What are the most exciting or interesting aspects of Gale?

McKay: The prospects of investigating clays and sedimentary layers that span most of, if not all of, Mars history in the central mount in Gale Crater.

Zuber: The center of Gale Crater features a 5-km-high mountain that contains layers that grade in composition from bottom to top. The rocks preserve the record of surface chemistry that appears to have been influenced greatly by water. [Video: Fly Over Gale Crater on Mars]

The evidence for water ranges from the deposition of the mountain itself to the chemistry of the rocks to channels that cut the terrain, and argues for an extended and changing aqueous history.

Smith: The wealth of water-related features and altered minerals opens a window onto the past history of Mars that has never before been explored. My hope is that there remains ample evidence showing that organic materials were common in ancient Mars.

Slowly working our way up through the layered deposits is sedimentary geology done in a classical fashion. Can we find the transition from an early wet Mars to the modern dry state that we see today? The question then is what happened to the water — Gale Crater may hold the answer.

Carr: The thick stratigraphic layers of the Gale Crater central mound. If Curiosity is able to traverse to and up through these layers, we will be taking a walk through time that covers a large swath of Martian history, a period when Mars may have been more habitable than it is today.

SPACE.com: Do you have high hopes for Curiosity's mission? What do you think it will find?

McKay: I do indeed have high hopes for Curiosity's mission. I think we will be able to detect organics on the surface of Mars.

My optimism on this is the result of the combined Phoenix and Viking results. Taken together, they imply that there are organics in the soils of Mars (at the few ppm [parts per million] level) but that the presence of perchlorate prevented their detection by the Viking instruments.

We believe that the instruments on Curiosity will be able to detect the few ppm organics even with the perchlorates present. So I expect that we'll have an exciting time trying to determine if there is any evidence for biological activity in the organics we find. The alternative is that the organics might be simply due to meteorite infall. [5 Bold Claims of Alien Life]

Zuber: Whenever we have looked in a new place at higher resolution or with new sensors, the discoveries have been remarkable, and I expect Curiosity to continue in the great tradition of Mars robotic explorers.

As far as what the rover will find, I have a wish rather than a prediction. I am hoping that as Curiosity moves up the stratigraphic section in the central mound and maps the evolving chemistry, that the measurements will inform our understanding of the role of the atmosphere in the evolving surface environment.

The question of how and over what period Mars lost much of its atmosphere, and how that relates to climate change, is one of the most compelling and puzzling questions in Mars science. [Photos: Curiosity Rover, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory]

Lemmon: If the rover lands safely, the investigation of the clays and sulfates at the base of the mound will put MSL onto the list of missions that revolutionize what we know about Mars.

Carr: I definitely have high hopes. This is an extremely capable rover with a tremendous set of instruments.

In particular, I am personally excited about the role the ChemCam instrument will play in providing rapid context at a distance, the in-depth sample analysis capability of the SAM instrument and the radiation data that will be collected by DAN, with its implications for modern habitability of Mars, including for future human visitors.

I make no predictions but hope we will find unambiguous evidence of organics among the layers in Gale Crater.

You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Other Blogs... Other Spaceports. SAM heading for MARS.

Dr. Paul Mahaffy is the Principle Investigator for the SAM analysis suite on Mars Science Laboratory Rover (Curiosity). An important goal of upcoming missions to Mars is to understand if life could have developed there. The vehicle should land in 2012.

MORE AT SPACEPORTS

The task of the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) suite of instruments and the other Curiosity investigations is to move us steadily toward that goal with an assessment of the habitability of our neighboring planet through a series of chemical and geological measurements. SAM is designed to search for organic compounds and inorganic volatiles and measure isotope ratios.

http://spaceports.blogspot.com/2011/01/mars-rover-will-check-for-ingredients.html



Other instruments on Curiosity will provide elemental analysis and identify minerals. Dr. Mahaffy discusses how SAM will analyze both atmospheric samples and gases evolved from powdered rocks that may have formed billions of years ago with Curiosity providing access to interesting sites scouted by orbiting cameras and spectrometers.