Friday, November 23, 2012

What Has Curiosity Discovered?

Just when you thought November was just about turkey, stuffing and leftovers, the NASA Curiosity rover's SAM (sample analysis at Mars) on-board chemistry lab sends back data that gets lead scientist, John Grozinger, Ph.D., to sit up and take notice. John was so excited about the martian soil data that he made an announcement...sort of. "This is going to be one for the history books; it looks really good," Grozinger said.
However, like all good science, "it" needs to be checked and re-checked before a formal scientific announcement is made. What is it? NASA won't say just yet, but SAM detects organic compounds, so most speculation is leaning toward some sort of organic matter that indicates past life on the Red Planet.

Keep tuned! In the mean time, what do you think the discovery is all about? 

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