Heavily altered clays are difficult to interpret, be the clays from hydrothermal alteration or weathering, and not particular good places to mind microfossils or biomarkers. Only sedimentary clays are good for that. Plus it looks to be rough and difficult to both land on and traverse. There are good reasons why it keeps getting rejected as a site.
This issue is only relevant to the Mars 2020 landing site, which is much closer to Oyama. Exomars would land in a different part of the Mawrth plateau well beyond the impact region she describes, which is probably why it wasn't raised.Quote from: Dalhousie on 04/04/2017 03:23 amHeavily altered clays are difficult to interpret, be the clays from hydrothermal alteration or weathering, and not particular good places to mind microfossils or biomarkers. Only sedimentary clays are good for that. Plus it looks to be rough and difficult to both land on and traverse. There are good reasons why it keeps getting rejected as a site.Only the topmost layers may represent later chemical weathering; It could also represent clays being laid down in different local chemical conditions. But even if that were true the intact Fe/Mg smectites layers below, like the ones at Oxia, are still there.
What?Instruments for ExoMars-2020 to be created "under military acceptance" https://ria.ru/space/20170626/1497332699.html
Andrew Coates, a planetary scientist at UCL who leads the ExoMars panoramic camera team, said the work shows that the surface of Mars today is more hostile to life than thought. “This, combined with the solar and galactic particle radiation environment at the Martian surface, makes it all the more important to sample underneath the surface in the search for biomarkers,” he said.“With the ExoMars rover, we will drill to retrieve and analyse samples from up to 2m under the surface,” he added. “This is important as a millimetre or two will get us below the harmful ultraviolet, one metre will get us below the oxidants such as perchlorates, and 1.5m gets us below the ionising radiation from the sun and galaxy.”
Quote from: Star One on 07/06/2017 09:10 pmMars covered in toxic chemicals that can wipe out living organisms, tests revealQuoteAndrew Coates, a planetary scientist at UCL who leads the ExoMars panoramic camera team, said the work shows that the surface of Mars today is more hostile to life than thought. “This, combined with the solar and galactic particle radiation environment at the Martian surface, makes it all the more important to sample underneath the surface in the search for biomarkers,” he said.“With the ExoMars rover, we will drill to retrieve and analyse samples from up to 2m under the surface,” he added. “This is important as a millimetre or two will get us below the harmful ultraviolet, one metre will get us below the oxidants such as perchlorates, and 1.5m gets us below the ionising radiation from the sun and galaxy.”https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jul/06/mars-covered-in-toxic-chemicals-that-can-wipe-out-living-organisms-tests-revealCommon Earth soil bacteria being used as a "canary in coalmine". Rates of perchlorate degradation suspect.Really bad reporting.Wrong bacteria to use. Should be cyanobacteria. Like from the Atacama.edit/gongora: fixed quotes
Mars covered in toxic chemicals that can wipe out living organisms, tests revealQuoteAndrew Coates, a planetary scientist at UCL who leads the ExoMars panoramic camera team, said the work shows that the surface of Mars today is more hostile to life than thought. “This, combined with the solar and galactic particle radiation environment at the Martian surface, makes it all the more important to sample underneath the surface in the search for biomarkers,” he said.“With the ExoMars rover, we will drill to retrieve and analyse samples from up to 2m under the surface,” he added. “This is important as a millimetre or two will get us below the harmful ultraviolet, one metre will get us below the oxidants such as perchlorates, and 1.5m gets us below the ionising radiation from the sun and galaxy.”https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jul/06/mars-covered-in-toxic-chemicals-that-can-wipe-out-living-organisms-tests-reveal
Quote from: Star One on 07/10/2017 06:46 amA lot of articles these days are based off the press releases put out by various groups, probably in an effort to at least constrain the reporting. Did this group do that or did they naively think the media were going to read the paper?The fact that they seem surprised by the reporting kind of makes me ask where they have been living the past five years.Know personally many of the planetary scientists (one just now drove off). They are interestingly unique in having very deep knowledge conveyed with very specific terms of art. Constantly having to defend themselves from lesser justified sources who intentionally misinterpret results to justify other agendas. (They even give me trouble when attempt to rewrite their math to allow a different perspective on the same subject, so it becomes a "surprise battle" in having to convince them that the change does not interfere with their science, which it doesn't.)One prominent PI routinely gets into trouble in talking with certain journalists, and NASA sends him to the "woodshed" for retraining in PR, so much so that other scientists run interference to keep it from happening.The science is subtle, but you have to wield a battleaxe to keep on mission. Going between extremes causes them to be easy targets for those who offer a sympathetic ear but then have no integrity with the application of what they've obtained. That's why they get suckered.
A lot of articles these days are based off the press releases put out by various groups, probably in an effort to at least constrain the reporting. Did this group do that or did they naively think the media were going to read the paper?The fact that they seem surprised by the reporting kind of makes me ask where they have been living the past five years.
So why don't keep away from the press?
Quote from: Star One on 07/10/2017 03:21 pmSo why don't keep away from the press?It's still a democracy.
<snip>The fact that they seem surprised by the reporting kind of makes me ask where they have been living the past five years.
Quote from: Blackstar on 07/10/2017 04:05 pmQuote from: Star One on 07/10/2017 03:21 pmSo why don't keep away from the press?It's still a democracy.It's often part of the rules of the job nothing to do with democracy.
Quote from: Star One on 07/10/2017 06:46 amA lot of articles these days are based off the press releases put out by various groups, probably in an effort to at least constrain the reporting. Did this group do that or did they naively think the media were going to read the paper?The fact that they seem surprised by the reporting kind of makes me ask where they have been living the past five years.Some years ago I published a scientific paper that got picked up by national and international media. We had put out a press release, which accurately covered the content of the paper in 'lay person speak'. As you say, nobody will read the actual paper, least of all the humanities trained 'science journalists' of the press. Despite the fact that we put out an accurate press release, the tabloids went to town on it, and completely mutilated the story. Bottom line: there is no accuracy in poplar reporting of science. Accept it, and move on.
Quote from: Star One on 07/10/2017 04:07 pmQuote from: Blackstar on 07/10/2017 04:05 pmQuote from: Star One on 07/10/2017 03:21 pmSo why don't keep away from the press?It's still a democracy.It's often part of the rules of the job nothing to do with democracy.No. That's just not correct. If a NASA mission PI is not a NASA employee (like many PIs for competed missions, who usually work for universities or research centers), NASA cannot tell them what they can and cannot say to the media. They may self-censor, but NASA cannot muzzle them. And NASA should not muzzle them. NASA does like to put out a coherent message, and the agency is pretty darned good at communicating. But I don't know why anybody would advocate stifling a scientist's right in a democracy to say whatever he or she wants to say.
But let's keep in mind that there are different levels of expertise. The science journalism done by Nature, Science, Scientific American, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and a few other big name publications, is usually very good. For many years the Washington Post had a top-notch space journalist (Kathy Sawyer) who had remarkable insight and understanding of NASA and civil space issues. It was not a case of having good sources, she took the information that a good researcher could find and she synthesized it and she was really good. The Time and the Post don't have people assigned to science beats like they used to, but their people are really quite good, although not as good as in the past when these were dedicated beats.The general press is often quite lousy. It's not that they are just lazy or sloppy, it's more that they are in the entertainment business, not journalism. They don't care.