By Elizabeth Landau, CNN
A big "OMG" moment for space enthusiasts may be coming!
We were certainly excited to read on NPR's website that the Curiosity rover may have discovered something "really interesting." John Grotzinger, principal investigator for the Curiosity rover mission, revealed to NPR that "This data is gonna be one for the history books. It's looking really good."
The data in question come from soil that was analyzed by an instrument suite on the rover called SAM, the Sample Analysis at Mars. This chemistry set is equipped to look for compounds of carbon, such as methane, as well as hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. These would suggest at least the possibility that life could have once existed there.
But Grotzinger would not tell NPR exactly what about the latest results could be so "earthshaking" (should we say "Mars-shaking"?). And it will be several weeks before the public may know anything further about the matter, NPR reported. The scientists don't want to say anything prematurely, before they're sure they know what they're seeing.
NASA-Jet Propulsion Laboratory spokesman Guy Webster told CNN that the science team is not ready to discuss the soil inspection from SAM and that the same policy applied to past results from the Curiosity mission.
"The scientists want to gain confidence in the findings before taking them outside of the science team. As for history books, the whole mission is for the history books," he wrote in an e-mail. "John was excited about the quality and range of information coming in from SAM during the day a reporter happened to be sitting in John's office last week. He has been similarly excited by results at other points during the mission so far."
Curiosity has been roaming Mars since its spectacular landing August 6, which involved a supersonic parachute and a sky crane. It weighs nearly 2,000 pounds and has 17 cameras on board. With the rover's sophisticated instruments, the $2.5 billion mission is exploring Mars in ways that no manmade probe has ever been able to before.
The rover landed in a place called Gale Crater, which may have once contained water. In fact, during its first couple of months of exploration, Curiosity found evidence of ancient water, based on rock formations that appeared to have formed in the presence of water.
For several weeks, Curiosity was parked at a place called Rocknest, where it scooped up soil samples and discovered shiny objects.
On November 16, the rover started driving again, NASA said. Currently it's on its way to a location called Point Lake. It moved 83 feet eastward Sunday.
Meanwhile, space fans have taken to Twitter to post humorous speculations about the rover's discoveries using the hashtag #CuriosityFindings. @treelobsters writes, "That red dust? Actually paprika." @jkfecke adds, "Face on Mars is huge statue of Justin Bieber." And particularly groundbreaking would be, as @TechyDad writes, "A giant pile of unmatched socks that disappeared from the Earth's washing machines."
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Miniature comic books about Muhammad. Hide your ambassadors.
don't know what they could find here .. 46 % of people living in the u.s think the whole universe is only 10,000 years old.. So that's probably why most of the comments here are written by third graders.
Scrawled into a rock: "Leroy was here 1954"
If they find life on mars it will only open up more questions than answers. Mostly it depends on the nature of what they find. Are they unique? Do/did the organisms share a common ancestry with those on Earth? How did they get there? So far all we know is that life appeared once on this plant about 4 billion years ago. We don't know where it came from or how it got there. Finding life on mars would either indicate life here came from somewhere else or that abiogenesis occured with some frequency in our early solar system. As far as a creator goes; what we find on mars will have no bearing on this.
Just about every great discovery has opened up more questions, Captain Obvious. Of course it will have a bearing on a creator mythology. People like you just keep expanding the lie of religion to fit new facts. While this is a rather obvious and pathetic attempt to keep your religion alive…I suppose it is better than burning people at the stake like you used to.
jGolden arches. Less than 1mm in height.
Flush only once. It's a short way to Mcdonalds
Nothing in a McDburger was ever alive
They found a unicorn.
My guess is that they found ancient Annunaki cigarette butts.
They found an ancient McDonald's hamburger, and it's still perfectly preserved.
tom & likes, get a life, quit wasting oxygen,u 2 igno'rant 2 b on this fantastic journey! do what the GOP wants from u drop dead w/o ins.
Shh. Those are really pics of Death Valley California
Just sheer arrogance of people on the inside to act sassy with the rest of us and make us wait as though they were the belle of the ball. It's just sheer vanity.
The vast majority of us have been exposed to the scientific method. They can safely share with us what they have found and their best educated conjecture without pathetic fears of ridicule.
i know, it's like X-factor. i get sick of watching the commercials
Sorry, Jose. This time they are correct. Maybe most people have been exposed to the scientific method, but as a teacher I can tell you that the vast majority don't understand it - and the media will mis-report any preliminary results. This will lead anti-research conservatives to claim it is a political move to put more money into space research.
If they wait until they can confirm the data strongly, then they will have a much better result. You can wait a couple of weeks. Think of it as a Christmas present you know you're gonna get but can't open until Christmas Day.
gopers never take compromising positions
I bet they found Martian Poop!
They found the missing Romney tax plan.
Excellent.
So basically they are saying that Rover farted and caught himself and now hes sending back a signal saying "Wasn't Me!"
Breaking news, snookie DNA found on Mars. Proving there is no intelligent life on the planet.
Priebus and Romeny embraced in a anus penetration.
The discovery has been leaked. It looks to be a urinal puck was discovered. * so that's where those things go...
Dear Religion:
While you killed hundreds of people in the past few days, I found something super cool on Mars that could have great implications for the future of humanity.
Yours Truly,
Science
what our rockets not cool enough for you
lol
Yes, but Science. you gave us the rockets.
Moses was talking to burning bush and praising Allah !
This is a complete of $2.5 billion dollars. When are you liberals going to learn we are broke?
complete...ly brilliant... use?
when u re-pugs wasting money blowing up muslims.
The mission and the money for it started out with GWB. One of the few things he did that I really like.
300 million a day in afghanistan. That's one Mars Mission a week going down the toilet over there. We know who to thank for that, too. The stupid science-hating idiot war hawks, which are mostly republican, that's who.
nytw: a better question would be to ask when conservatives are going to realize that we can't advance without research, and space research tends to produce more usable technology that most kinds of research. Remember: about 1/3 of the technology used in laptops, cell phones, computers, etc. came about BECAUSE of moon expeditions... maybe more than 1/3. If we hadn't gone there, you wouldn't be typing your complaint on a keyboard.
Maybe because of Mars exploration, your kids will one day be able to ride shuttles to the moon, complaining the whole way there.
It'll be some kind of animal and someone will try to eat it.
If the libertarians were in power that we'd not be able to go to Mars till the end of the century or never at all! I realize about Project Deep Blue but even that hinges on NASA like it always has. Space X is awesome not without meriting NASA with prior discovery, so I think government has a crutial role in research in the private sector to discovery long-term results like a cure to blindness for me at the University of Miami!
they found... the meaning of life....
They found Alice Kramden – Ralph overshot the moon
They found... pure... speculation.
No go back to your respective slave positions, shut up, and pay your taxes.
The problem with posts on the internet is that it's hard to tell if someone is just struggling with translating to English, or they're a hillbilly.
How about an Englishman with mad cow disease.
Whats rong wit U. I spek Enklesh good. في الواقع أنا أتكلم الإنجليزية جيدا.
In the last sentence, you actually started to sound you could ever get a job at NASA.
If NASA found hard evidence pointing towards life on Mars, past or present, there is NO WAY ON EARTH (or Mars) that they would be permitted to tell the public – the data would be instantly classified, and only known by a very small number of officials, all sworn to absolute secrecy.
Yeah.. the last thing they want is find proof that the god thing is NOT real.....of course the 20% Atheists already know that and accepted this easliy.. but the myth salesmen would be out of a job ...nothing worst than a few 100 million liars without a job.
They found all those missing socks!
They found a Starbucks.
Scientific "Handy"
Everyone who's wowed by this is simply -not very bright. This is a giant waste of our money. Tell us something with real weight, like the fact that we've been interacting with ET for a long time already. whatever Nasa...
Its no more of a waste than us billions billions to other countries so they can be happy and want to k1!! us.
G.A.B.E. Goof Against Becoming Enlightened.
They found unusual allotropes of carbon and a strange new element
the new C-13?
So they finally found Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa.
They finally found who doctored the talking points on Benghazi. Couldn't have been someone of this planet.
Incorrect. NASA's budget is roughly one-half of one percent of the total Federal budget. At around $900 billion, military spending only amounts to about 25% of the $3.8 trillion Federal budget.
A colony of creatures resembling Donald Trump's toupee?
Seriously. I think they found a piece of plastic. Not "man"-made.
They dug up some shiny stuff a few weeks ago. Go to curiosity website to see photos. I think they found GOLD.
They found a Starbucks cup partially buried in the Martian soil.
They found a place a place that's perfect for one libertarian. Of course, if two libertarians want to go, they will have to find a second planet.
HA!
They have found some money to save HOSTESS!!!
My guess is they found an undecayed Twinkie.
They probably found some old manmade spacecraft debris
A still-edible Twinkie...
ahhhh you beat me to a hostess joke!
they found a petrified pile of poo..
Oh no, here we go again! Countless times biologists and astrobiologists call for a drum -roll to announce a new breakthrough discovery that proves that lifeless matter can miraculously organize itself into life forms or that humans evolved from some animal - only to have their hopes dashed as the discovery unfolds.
Remember the alleged Mar's rock found in Antarctica and the claims that bacteria trails were found in it? Alas, that just peetered out into oblivion. Or how about the big "breakthrough" hoopla made about "Ida" and "Ardi" and "Lucy". The suspense dissipated into nothing. Just recently it has been conclusively proven that "Lucy" was not the bipedal wonder she was made out to be, but rather a tree swinging species of ape with the typical long curved fingers and ape shoulder construction.
So, please excuse me if I don't hold my breath over this new drum-roll. I would rather wait and see what substantive evidence (if any) comes out of this.
I don't understand your point, but your allegation that recent study of Australopithecus afarensis reveals it was not bi-pedal is incorrect. True, there were still indications of tree habitation to avoid predators, but that does not void the fact that this creature was also bi-pedal. There is also no question that Australopithecus afarensis is directly related to humans.
"The authors also suspect that A. afarensis was not the first ancestor of humans to walk upright. This could be why Selam's bones indicate she walked with ease, at least when compared to chimpanzees that have been trained to do so. Chimps have a lumbering, awkward upright gait because they lack some important pelvic and lower limb characteristics that Selam possessed." – Discover October 25 2012
Perhaps your prefer the non-science position of your fellow T-clowns.
You have demonstrated once again how little the "evolution lay-people" know about their own belief! Here are the latest facts about "Lucy" - confessions by evolution scientists:
Lord Solly Zuckerman of Birmingham, and Professor Charles Oxnard of the University of Western Australia, conclude that australopithecines were a unique group of extinct creatures, not anatomically intermediate between apes and humans, so were not evolutionary ‘links’ at all.
Some interesting new work has also helped to demolish the idea that the australopithecines habitually walked upright. Computerized X-ray scans are able to reveal the bony structure of the inner ear. The shape of this has been shown to directly reflect patterns of movement. Understandably, humans (the only creatures alive that walk habitually upright) have an inner ear structure which stands out from the rest. In contrast, that of ALL australopithecines (and habilines) studied are ‘decidedly ape-like.
Dr Charles Oxnard, Professor of Anatomy and Human Biology at the University of Western Australia therefore concludes: “Neither Lucy nor any other australopithecine is therefore intermediate between humans and African apes. Nor are they similar enough to humans to be any sort of ancestor of ours.”
Researcher David Green at Midwestern University in Downers Grove, Ill., states in "Live Science": "The question as to whether Australopithecus afarensis was strictly bipedal or if they also climbed trees has been intensely debated for more than 30 years. These remarkable fossils provide strong evidence that these individuals were still climbing at this stage." That was from October 26th 2012.
The claim you put forth, that "Lucy" 'walked upright with ease' is based on ideological assumptions and not on the solid, anatomical evidence at hand.
I bet its methane based microbial life form.
with the fart jokes already....
This is the most important story of the 21st century.
True be that.
My Favorite Martian
It's Saddam Hussein's WMD.
Ba-Zing!
KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!
"Buried alive. Buried alive."
They'll probably announce they've "found evidence of water" for the tenth time.
The first of the Mohicans
They hired a new intern media person, who is trying to build momentum just like Apple, Windows releases do. I hope they remember this is about creating the building blocks of science. This is not Mars Idol.
They found John Carter.
They have found gold. Let the space rush begin!
Maybe they found a Stink Bug
"A big "OMG" moment for SPACE ENTHUSIASTS may be coming!"
Space Enthusiasts are apparently the only people who would care about perhaps the discovery of alien life. True, great job CNN
they found Spock.... and a few Borg.
I wonder if they found a Russian or Chinese flag? LOL
Gold! It's gold and tons of it. Now even the religous and science haters can get behind the exploration.
Welcome home, Valentine Michael Smith!
They found Jimmy Hoffa !
they couldn't just leave it alone – now what the hell will be VISITING US???????? call ripley
The found the rest of Florida's missing ballots
Christians do believe in life beyond earth. If you read the bible (looks as though most of you don't) you will see that Jesus ascended from the earth to another place, somewhere. To say that we don't believe life exists anywhere but earth in totally incorrect.
If you read Caesar's Messiah by Joseph Atwill you will know that Roman myth is a bunch of bull....
About time, they finally found Capone and can stop digging up people's back yards in Michigan.
Capone died in jail. I think you mean Hoffa.
The Rover bumped into another intelligent life form's Mars Rover and it was really awkward as they backed away from each other and pretended it never happened?
Quite the opposite. They experienced love at first site and are mating.
Instead of fighting wars for religous reasons.
We should be investing into cures for aging, and death. And space exploration with the intent to colonize.
They found the cure for Cancer, Aids, Depression, Oldstimers, Autisim (No spell check), common cold and flu, yet they are checking if it would be financially wise for the Pharmasudical Industry..
They have finally found Mitch McConnell's humanity!
Don't get too close to the snake type critter...
I found something on Uranus last night.
NASA needs to stop overselling these news conferences. Unless it is a life form, NASA needs to just say that they will have a conference to report the latest interesting findings. NASA has oversold these events before where people were disappointed because the hype did not match the reality. Eventually what is going to happen is that people will lose interest and not even show to the news conference.
Somewhat true, although a bigger problem is that what scientists find exciting fails to excite so many others.
It's life, Jim...but not as we know it.
i with you on this.................
So let's wait a few weeks and release the information on 12-21 - that will keep the conspiracy lines humming.
(I've been expecting them to come across a fossil or something like that ever since they took an interest in a piece of rock that was laying around which looked to me like a small chunk of concrete.)
Fossilized remains? Are they ready for it?
I AM
That would be cool. But unlikely. More probable would be the detection of chemicals uniquely tied to life. To my mind, either would be astonishing news, but I'll just have to wait and see what they've found.
Yes, I can understand your disagreement SixDegrees but I would maintain that it is inevitable. There is little question in my mind anymore about it.
I think they will announce a joint mission for NASA and US Navy. They're going to announce a plan to send a bunch of seamen to Uranus.
While they are up there, i hope they find a cure for Republicanism.
Curiosity has been reduced to sending one sequence of letters over and over: G R O K
All work and no play
Makes Jack a dull boy
All work and no play
Makes Jack a dull boy................
the DoubleX Files ?!?!
They now realize that those shiny objects in the Martian soil are actually crystalline Gold.
They found the Stargate.
They've found unobtainium!
Mitt Romney's Tax Returns?
An OMG moment would be to find life on Mars, even if it's a single cell organism. Earth shattering news would be one in which we realize it is smarter than those that voted for Obumbler...which shouldn't be too difficult.
Those who voted for him are certainly smarter than the blithering idiots who have to make up names for him.
Still havent gotten over it Mitt ?
Maybe they found the stimulus money Obama lost
Or the jobs Myth sent out of the country.
Y kind of life anywhere in this univerNot actually... The many factions of Christianity have come to this conclusion. The early Church which evolved to the Roman Church and now to modern Catholicism applauds the possibility of outside of Earth life, evolutionary growth by understanding that God being the eternal pusher or giver has the ability to create life anywhere in this universe as we understand it to be.
They keep massaging the lies to suit current conditions...Not that long ago the Church condemned anybody who claimed the Earth was round...
"Not that long ago the Church condemned anybody who claimed the Earth was round..."
They did? When did they do that? References, please.
Galileo was locked in his house until he recanted that the earth was not the center of the universe...instead of the sun.
God did not teach his salesmen reality... lies sell better than truth.
SixDegrees obviously has a grade 6. Anyone who has ever read a science book knows about the evolution of the description of the universe: Tyco Brahe, Copernicus and Galileo to name a few of its fathers.
This is like waiting to see McDonald's release a new sandwich. Ouuu..! we found dirt with bacteria poo.
Obviously, they found the ARC. It's about time. (DOOM the Movie reference for those who don't know)
Hey Ann, maybe my Zeppelin tape is under a giant monolithic slab. Sometimes I think I can hear it beaming a signal to me when I am in the zone.... you know? I could dig some Twinkies too though, that would be cool.
If you think like a chemist analyzing a sample, and what would be a monumentally significant find, it seems pretty obvious to me what that would be ...
Think about what would be left behind on Earth if it lost its atmosphere over millions of years, and what an explorer might later find showing that Earth once had one.
I think they found oxide compounds, proving that Mars once had an atmosphere.
It technically has an atmosphere now. Its just very thin and no magnetosphere to help shield it.
When you've eliminated all that is impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Therefore, by deductive reasoning, we have narrowed it down to one of two possible outcomes:
1. The rest of the Mayan calendar
2. A Lombardi trophy with "Minnesota Vikings" engraved on it
3. A newspaper that says Mitt Romney Wins Election.
I was going to say "the rest of Romney's tax records".
God has nothing to do with this.
or anything else either... they found gods pen1s
They found the little red riding hoods house.
hoffa?! finally!
They found a Mars bar.
Marsupials?
Marshmellows?
Winton Marsallis?
Marshall Dillon?
Wait a minute.. They found a Windows 8 that works?