Thank you.I'm still puzzled that the 'official' map appears to be neglected. Raw images are still posted on most days, so they are still attending to the public-facing part of the project.
The media and public are invited to ask questions during a live discussion at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT) Thursday, June 7, on new science results from NASA's Mars Curiosity rover. The results are embargoed by the journal Science until then.The event will air live on NASA Television and the agency's website.Michelle Thaller, assistant director of science for communications, in NASA's Planetary Science Division will host the chat. Participants include:Paul Mahaffy, director of the Solar System Exploration Division at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MarylandJen Eigenbrode, research scientist at GoddardChris Webster, senior research fellow, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CaliforniaAshwin Vasavada, Mars Science Laboratory project scientist, JPLThe public can send questions on social media by using #askNASA. The event can also be watched on Facebook Live, Twitch TV, Ustream, YouTube and Twitter/Periscope.For information about NASA's Curiosity rover, visit:https://www.nasa.gov/msl
The Curious Case of Methane on MarsToday NASA held a press conference to announce the results of two papers released in Science this week: One on atmospheric methane, and one on organics in the soil, both from Curiosity rover data.
The bottom line is that what Curiosity is detecting is exactly what you would expect if ancient Martian organisms were living in Lake Gale 3.5 billion years ago. The difference is that kerogen deposits on earth are usually tens of millions of years old, not billions of years old as is the case on Mars.
The 2020 rover will have organic detection instruments that are not affected by oxychlorine compounds and will hopefully produce accurate abundances for any rock with an organic level of more than 1ppm. They should provide results far more quickly, without the need for time consuming drill stops that Curiosity needs.
The significance of the Gale Crater's discoveries almost warrants reconsidering sending 2020 there. All the same, similar if not better deposits at Gusev and the Jezero/Syrtis area. I like to think Curiosity as a prelude to what 2020 may find.
It turns out that today's announcement has nothing to do with the wet chemistry experiment that they ran on the sand dune material. That's a pity, as I think those results will be interesting when they finally get around to publishing them.What they announced today was kerogen. When kerogen in rocks is heated it turns into crude oil, or natural gas if the temperature is high enough. Kerogen rich rocks can be heated in a furnace to produce a synthetic crude oil. Kerogen on earth is formed when microscopic organisms in the ocean die and are buried in the sediment.Kerogen on earth almost always has sulfur associated with it. The scientists announced today that they are also seeing sulfur in the Martian kerogen. Oil and gas rich areas on earth often have methane seeps, and the Curiosity rover is detecting some methane in the atmosphere from an unknown source.The bottom line is that what Curiosity is detecting is exactly what you would expect if ancient Martian organisms were living in Lake Gale 3.5 billion years ago. The difference is that kerogen deposits on earth are usually tens of millions of years old, not billions of years old as is the case on Mars. Also, Earth sediments tend to be much richer in organic molecules, with abundances in the parts per thousand range rather than the 10 parts per million range reported for Mars.I think the difference in abundances is important. While there are several ways to make organics, it is biology that makes organics in vast quantities. Meteorite infall and water-rock interactions are not responsible for oil or coal deposits on earth because they do not produce organics in large enough quantities to matter. I have seen a range of numbers for the organic abundances in Gale Crater rocks. Some sources indicate parts per billion levels, while some LPSC abstracts seem to be indicating parts per thousand levels, which is comparable to sedimentary rocks on Earth. Today's announcement of 10 parts per million falls in the middle of that range. I have a feeling that the problems the SAM instrument has had with oxychlorine compounds make it very difficult to get accurate abundance numbers.The 2020 rover will have organic detection instruments that are not affected by oxychlorine compounds and will hopefully produce accurate abundances for any rock with an organic level of more than 1ppm. They should provide results far more quickly, without the need for time consuming drill stops that Curiosity needs.
Quote from: redliox on 06/08/2018 01:24 amThe significance of the Gale Crater's discoveries almost warrants reconsidering sending 2020 there. All the same, similar if not better deposits at Gusev and the Jezero/Syrtis area. I like to think Curiosity as a prelude to what 2020 may find.I could not closely watch the entire conference, but one of the programmatic "take-aways" appeared to me to be:A progression of more finely designed and capable scientific instruments aboard landers/rovers will allow the discovery of answers to more and more complex questions.Curiosity > Mars 2020 Rover/Exomars 2020 Rover > Mars Sample Return