NASA Mars rover fully analyzes first soil samples
December 5, 2012
This is a view of the third (left) and fourth (right) trenches made by the 1.6-inch-wide (4-centimeter-wide) scoop on NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity in October 2012 (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)
NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover has used its full array of instruments to analyze Martian soil for the first time, and found a complex chemistry within the Martian soil, including water and sulfur and chlorine-containing substances.
The rover’s laboratory includes the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) suite and the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument. SAM used three methods to analyze gases given off from the dusty sand when it was heated in a tiny oven. One class of substances SAM checks for is organic compounds — carbon-containing chemicals that can be ingredients for life.
“We have no definitive detection of Martian organics at this point, but we will keep looking in the diverse environments of Gale Crater,” said SAM Principal Investigator Paul Mahaffy of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
The samples’ composition is about half common volcanic minerals and half non-crystalline materials such as glass. SAM added information about ingredients present in much lower concentrations and about ratios of isotopes. Isotopes are different forms of the same element and can provide clues about environmental changes. The water seen by SAM does not mean the drift was wet. Water molecules bound to grains of sand or dust are not unusual, but the quantity seen was higher than anticipated.
SAM tentatively identified the oxygen and chlorine compound perchlorate. This is a reactive chemical previously found in arctic Martian soil by NASA’s Phoenix Lander. Reactions with other chemicals heated in SAM formed chlorinated methane compounds — one-carbon organics that were detected by the instrument. The chlorine is of Martian origin, but it is possible the carbon may be of Earth origin, carried by Curiosity and detected by SAM’s high sensitivity design.
For more information about Curiosity and other Mars missions, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mars.
Comments (11)
by Damon Montano
Zen:
No hope, no disappointment.
by infinitos
Damn, will keep trying curiosity: ( !
by Foye Lowe
Shall we visit the sun, “because it’s there”? Sorry. I’m in a contrarian mood today, and appreciating melajara’s spelling . . .
by Gorden Russell
Well Foye, we certainly can afford to send robots, even in spite of the poor economy. And don’t forget that there are a lot of people who yearn to explore Mars, and some of them are billionaires who will pony up the money.
I’m not keen to go myself, but I want to see what they discover. If even single-celled organisms can live beneath the soil there, then we can believe that larger planets in closer orbits to other stars could have life too.
One day we will be able to grow perfect cables of carbon nanotubes long enough to lower down from geosynchronous orbit. There are lots of carbonaceous asteroids that could be ferried into position to do this. When there are space elevators, starships will be built in the Lagrange Points and out in the Main Asteroid Belt. The ships will need to be dozens of miles across and hundreds of miles long to house the charged particle accelerators needed to thrust them up to relativistic speeds. This can be done and after the Singularity there will be people with the will to do it.
by Ryan
I’m more hopeful that the White-Juday Inferometer can prove warp bubbles to be possible and that that opens up a whole new avenue to space travel. And if we can’t figure it out, should warp bubbles prove feasible, maybe a much smarter AGI can do it for us.
by IONE
Don’t believe that’s the whole story. Really!
by Bruce Wright
Well, I’m sure that they’re finding other things that haven’t been announced yet. But why does everyone expect to find (living) life there? Mars is a very arid place (even if it does have trace amounts of water), has a minimal atmosphere, and is also a very cold place (at the poles, CO2 freezes) – not exactly hospitable to life as we know it. The likelihood is that if life ever did develop there, it died out when the planet cooled and much of the atmosphere was stripped away. That doesn’t mean it’s uninteresting.
by Bruce Wright
(Not even to mention the high radiation levels on the surface – which would be enough to destroy most Earthly life all by itself. Likely the radiation flux was quite a bit lower when it had more of an atmosphere, and possibly even a magnetic field before the core cooled).
by melajara
Is it that the fantastic news qualifying as “one for the history books”?
PSCHIIT!!!
by Gorden Russell
Well, don’t be too upset, melajara. That news about the perchlorate is good news. Perchlorate can be used to make rocket fuel, so a robot base could print out boosters and fuel them up for the return trip before humans ever arrive.
by Bruce Wright
NASA has been trying to tamp down the speculation surrounding the expression “one for the history books,” saying that the researcher had meant that the entire mission was historic rather than any one particular discovery so far. And even if he was talking about this particular discovery, finding any kind of complex chemistry is certainly historic – even if it doesn’t involve life.
It’s almost certain that most planets won’t have life – they’re too hot, or too cold, or whatever. That doesn’t mean that exploring them will be uninteresting – far from it. I think you’re setting the bar for “one for the history books” far too high.