Curiosity: Mars Science Lab Landing and Surface Operations

spin0 said:
Who?

ETA: No I'm serious: Who?
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Galileo Galilei.

He pointed his little telescope at Jupiter, and discovered its moons, at Saturn and discovered its rings, at Venus and discovered that it went though phases like the Moon.

Response from the RCC

"But to affirm that the Sun is really fixed in the center of the heavens and that the Earth revolves very swiftly around the Sun is a dangerous thing, not only irritating the theologians and philosophers, but injuring our holy faith and making the sacred scriptures false."
- Robert Bellarmine, Cardinal Inquisitor of the RCC 1599 -1621

"The doctrine that the earth is neither the center of the universe nor immovable, but moves even with a daily rotation, is absurd, and both psychologically and theologically false, and at the least an error of faith."
- Formal Church declaration in its indictment of Galileo

Galieo's books were banned as heresy, and remained so for another two centuries until 1832 when they were removed from the list of banned books that Catholics were forbidden to read.

It took a further 160 years for the Catholic Church to apologise for the persecution of Galileo.

"I for one think that we should not let the church forget their crimes, lest they be repeated. If the Church still had the power of sword and firebrand, and the power to cross national borders at will, I believe that they would even now return to their policy of world conquest through threat, torture and murder."
- Pope John Paul II c. 1992
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Would it be recognizable? Do we know what the early Earth consisted of (atmosphere and composition) for sure?
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I'm not a planetologist nor geologist, but here's some pointers how I think it might be recognizable:
1. Out of place object. If it sits on the surface with nothing like it around and has meteor features then where is it from?
2. Mineral composition. If it has minerals like rocks on Earth then what processes would have created the very same in Mars?
3. Chemical composition and isotopes. If its chemical composition does not fit its place and isotopes show it has a out of place age then it must be from somewhere else. And if they fit Earth well then...
etc.

And then it's a different matter altoghether if any of current instruments on Mars could actually demonstrate that a meteorite sample actually was of Earth origin.

But not a planetologist here. Hopefully someone with more insight could answer properly.
 
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smartcooky said:
Galileo Galilei.

He pointed his little telescope at Jupiter, and discovered its moons, at Saturn and discovered its rings, at Venus and discovered that it went though phases like the Moon.

Response from the RCC

"But to affirm that the Sun is really fixed in the center of the heavens and that the Earth revolves very swiftly around the Sun is a dangerous thing, not only irritating the theologians and philosophers, but injuring our holy faith and making the sacred scriptures false."
- Robert Bellarmine, Cardinal Inquisitor of the RCC 1599 -1621

"The doctrine that the earth is neither the center of the universe nor immovable, but moves even with a daily rotation, is absurd, and both psychologically and theologically false, and at the least an error of faith."
- Formal Church declaration in its indictment of Galileo

Galieo's books were banned as heresy, and remained so for another two centuries until 1832 when they were removed from the list of banned books that Catholics were forbidden to read.

It took a further 160 years for the Catholic Church to apologise for the persecution of Galileo.

"I for one think that we should not let the church forget their crimes, lest they be repeated. If the Church still had the power of sword and firebrand, and the power to cross national borders at will, I believe that they would even now return to their policy of world conquest through threat, torture and murder."
- Pope John Paul II c. 1992
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Wrong. They didn't have a problem with his claim that there were other worlds. They had a problem with his claim that the Earth wasn't the center of the universe.
 
So basically the Catholics had no problem with there being possibly lots of worlds and aliens and whatnot, as long as Earth was at the centre of it all.

Kinda like Pulp SF from the Fifties...
 
Brainache said:
So basically the Catholics had no problem with there being possibly lots of worlds and aliens and whatnot, as long as Earth was at the centre of it all.

Kinda like Pulp SF from the Fifties...
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Are you surprised?

And these are the Catholics, who accept evolution...
 
spin0 said:
I'm not a planetologist nor geologist, but here's some pointers how I think it might be recognizable:
1. Out of place object. If it sits on the surface with nothing like it around and has meteor features then where is it from?
2. Mineral composition. If it has minerals like rocks on Earth then what processes would have created the very same in Mars?
3. Chemical composition and isotopes. If its chemical composition does not fit its place and isotopes show it has a out of place age then it must be from somewhere else. And if they fit Earth well then...
etc.

And then it's a different matter altoghether if any of current instruments on Mars could actually demonstrate that a meteorite sample actually was of Earth origin.

But not a planetologist here. Hopefully someone with more insight could answer properly.
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I'm not saying a meteorite wouldn't be recognized as a meteorite. But we determine the origin of meteorites on Earth by their composition, both the trapped gasses and the mineral composition. Earth's atmosphere is not the same as it was billions of years ago. The rocks, maybe. But the atmosphere, no.
 
So do we have a pool open?

I'd like to put my money on the discovery of a decent amount of nitrate salts in the sand. This would imply two things: that Mars once had a nitrogen-rich atmosphere like Earth's, and that future Martian settlements will have easy access to a pretty good oxidizer and essential nitrogen. Either or both of these may qualify as "earth-shaking" to the right type of nerd.

Nitrates have been hypothesized in the past, Curiosity is the first rover with the capacity to test for such, and it happened to take its first sand scoop not long ago, but none of those are why I'm betting on this one. I'm picking this one because I can all too easily imagine the following:

NASA: we've discovered nitrate salts in Martian regolith!
Science journalist: nitrates (such as those used in gunpowder) discovered in Martian sand!
"Science" journalist: gunpowder-like substance discovered on Mars!
Everyone around me for the next five years: MARS IS COVERED IN GUNPOWDER!
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Search your gut. You know it to be true.

Also if it were life or anything like it, they would not have said one damn thing until they were absolutely positively certain.
 
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StankApe said:
I agree, the avg. person might even get as excited as 'neato! pass the ketchup" us nerds will be excited tho! (and that's all that matters!)
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Seconded.

From the OP's link:
...scientists are like artists. Sharing what they do is a big part of why they get out of bed in the morning.
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3 Dec. is the scheduled announcement day?
Something to look forward to.
 
spin0 said:
This idea is known as the plurality of worlds and it has never since been considered wrong or heretical per se in the Catholic Church ... So the ideas of possible extraterrestial life are rather old, and those ideas has been accepted in the Catholic church and in the Vatican for a very long time.

Here's an informative article about Nicholas of Cusa and extraterrestials: http://www.challzine.net/29/29extraterr.html (though the writer repeats some more recent myths about Bruno).
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Wiki repeats them too, if myths they be.
... The numerous charges against Bruno, based on some of his books as well as on witness accounts, included blasphemy, immoral conduct, and heresy in matters of dogmatic theology ... Luigi Firpo lists these charges made against Bruno by the Roman Inquisition:
holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith and speaking against it and its ministers;
holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about the Trinity, divinity of Christ, and Incarnation;
holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith pertaining to Jesus as Christ;
holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith regarding the virginity of Mary, mother of Jesus;
holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about both Transubstantiation and Mass;
claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity;
believing in metempsychosis and in the transmigration of the human soul into brutes, and;
dealing in magics and divination.
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You're stating that no charge referring to plurality of worlds was ever made against Bruno?
 
Life on Mars confirmation?

We shall see..

Former NASA researcher Gilbert Levin says that a positive sign of organics by Curiosity would confirm his claim that NASA has already seen evidence for life on Mars – from an experiment called Labeled Release that went to the Red Planet aboard the Viking mission.
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Gilbert Levin appears to be an interesting guy. Maybe someone else is familiar with him? He has credentials but did he just fail to accept the consensus of his Viking project or is he a more legit dissenter than that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Levin
Gilbert Levin is an American engineer, the founder of Spherix and famous for experiments on Mars soil by the Viking program and the development of tagatose.
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http://www.icamsr.org/mtlp_chap9.html
http://mars.spherix.com/gvl.htm
http://www.gillevin.com/
http://www.jhu.edu/~jhumag/1102web/sweet.html
 
spin0 said:
Besides hilarious would probably be significant finding - a more or less pristine sample of ancient Earth.
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Would it have to be ancient? It would certainly need a very large impact to put a sizable rock from Earth into a Mars-crossing orbit. How big I don't know- but probably bigger than anything that has happened in the last 3.8BY or so.

It would hardly be pristine though. For a start it's been shock stressed, heated , degassed , deep frozen then dropped on another planet and exposed to weathering for a few billion years, then zapped with a laser.
If it were me, I'd be getting pretty cheesed off about now in fact.
 
Craig B said:
Wiki repeats them too, if myths they be. You're stating that no charge referring to plurality of worlds was ever made against Bruno?
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From your quote from Wikipedia:
holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about both Transubstantiation and Mass; claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity;
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As a hypothesis the plurality of worlds was part of officially accepted doctrine since 1277, and he was not charged for just claiming plurality of worlds. The eternity part is important to note here - it related to his claims about salvation, which were considered heretical.
 
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Soapy Sam said:
It would hardly be pristine though. For a start it's been shock stressed, heated , degassed , deep frozen then dropped on another planet and exposed to weathering for a few billion years, then zapped with a laser.
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Shock stresses and heating from impact are not necessarily strong, it depends on many factors - and we know Mars meteorites still have gasses trapped into them. The brief period of travelling in the atmosphere only heats a very thin layer on the surface. In space the rock would be deep frozen and only exposed to radiation. And weathering on the Mars' surface would probably be less than that here on Earth.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
I'm not saying a meteorite wouldn't be recognized as a meteorite. But we determine the origin of meteorites on Earth by their composition, both the trapped gasses and the mineral composition. Earth's atmosphere is not the same as it was billions of years ago. The rocks, maybe. But the atmosphere, no.
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What I'm saying is that a meteorite of Earth origin could be identified as such based on it's minerals and composition - not necessarily entrapped gases. If it for example has minerals we know appear here on Earth but probably not anywhere else in SS then it's probably from Earth.
 
OK, rumour of a rumour here........

........but someone on the internet says that they think they've heard someone say that NASA has possibly maybe found methane.

Is there any source of methane which doesn't point back to decaying organic matter?

Mike
 
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