Curiosity: Mars Science Lab Landing and Surface Operations

volcano said:
Lots of good stuff on the schedule this year-- I'll miss the Curiosity session (U13) because I have another session to attend that afternoon, but I have a number of planetary friends who will be at the Curiosity session and can tell me what I miss :)

I'm also really excited about these sessions: Countering Denial and Manufactured Doubt of 21st Century Science talks and posters
(I'll miss the talks-- too many Monday afternoon sessions! But I plan to go see the posters on Tuesday morning)

I wonder how many other JREF forum folks are going to AGU?
Click to expand...
"Characterizing uncertainty": I've been talking about this for years. How we frame uncertainty is an important issue for scientists and skeptics dealing with the denier public.

"Supported by overwhelming evidence" is an important phrase every skeptic should learn to use. Much better than an hour explaining how the word 'theory' is used in science.
 
Last edited:
Beelzebuddy said:
...In particular I'm curious to know if there's any nitrogen in the soil, since it's kind of a big deal for terran life and would need to be shipped in otherwise.
Click to expand...

That would be one step closer to a retirement colony on Mars!


Travis said:
Wasn't there an astronomer burned at the stake in Spain that was only charged with agreeing with others that Earth revolved around the Sun?
Click to expand...

Spain, no.
Rome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "in 1600 there was no official Catholic position on the Copernican system, and it was certainly not a heresy. When [...] Bruno [...] was burned at the stake as a heretic, it had nothing to do with his writings in support of Copernican cosmology."[36]

Similarly, the Catholic Encyclopedia (1908) asserts that "Bruno was not condemned for his defence of the Copernican system of astronomy, nor for his doctrine of the plurality of inhabited worlds, but for his theological errors, among which were the following: that Christ was not God but merely an unusually skillful magician, that the Holy Ghost is the soul of the world, that the Devil will be saved, etc."[37]
Click to expand...
 
^ Plus Bruno was not an astronomer or even a protoscientist. He was a religiuous mystic, a proto-pseudoscientist. Sort of like those new age guys who spout about their spiritual believes and randomly add the words "energy" or "quantum" here and there. Bruno just used the buzzwords of his time - like heliosentrism. Figuratively: If there had been a scientific conference of Kopernican scientists they'd burned Bruno themselves, and if Bruno appeared here on this forum we'd put him on a verbal stake for asserting things as truths without a shred of evidence (until banned for his argumentative habits).
 
Last edited:
No, I'm not talking about Bruno. The one I'm thinking of was condemned only for advocating a sun centered solar system. And it was in Spain.
 
Travis said:
No, I'm not talking about Bruno. The one I'm thinking of was condemned only for advocating a sun centered solar system. And it was in Spain.
Click to expand...
It would be helpful if you could name him, as at least I'm not aware of anyone fitting that description. In fact Spain was an early adopter of heliocentrism in the 16th-17th centuries (*.

In Spain the University of Salamanca, one of the top universities in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, was the first to start teaching the Copernican model from 1561.

And in 1584 Spanish theologian Diego de Zúñiga argued in his book In Job commentaria that the Bible actually favors heliocentrism. He was not put on stake for that, in fact his opinion was permitted and he went without any reprisal. But later in 1616 The Vatican included his book into same Church's Index as De revolutionibus. (Funnily enough Juan de Pineda, editor of the Spanish Index, had his own original copy of De revolutionibus, and thusly proposed no changes to the index.)


*) And ironically Spain was among the last to resist it in the 17th-18th centuries as Spain suffered stagnation or even decline of astronomical sciences, to which several factors contributed.


ETA: Is it possible you are thinking about Miguel Serveto Conesa? He was a Spanish theologian, physician, cartographer, and Renaissance man well versed in: mathematics, astronomy, meteorology, geography, anatomy, medicine, poetry and the Bible. But then again he was burned by protestants in Geneva, and heliocentrism had nothing to do with it.
 
Last edited:
Just a last chance reminder to all those interested:
spin0 said:
For those interested in inner workings of Curiosity and it's scientific experiments, Springer-Verlag has put all Curiosity's instrument papers freely accessible here: http://link.springer.com/journal/11214/170/1/page/1

Go get them while the offer lasts (til Nov 30).
Click to expand...
Besides technical papers about MSL, her instruments and the scientific investigations, the papers also include geological and enviromental assessments of the Gale crater.

The definitive source for Gale geology is "Geologic mapping and characterization of Gale Crater and implications for its potential as a Mars Science Laboratory landing site" which can be found here: http://martianchronicles.wordpress.com/2010/09/16/gale-crater-geomorphology-paper-published/

Other relevant presentations about Gale here: http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/msl/workshops/5th_workshop/program.html
 
Last edited:
Finally NASA/JPL puts the speculations to rest: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2012-377

Rumors and speculation that there are major new findings from the mission at this early stage are incorrect. The news conference will be an update about first use of the rover's full array of analytical instruments to investigate a drift of sandy soil. One class of substances Curiosity is checking for is organic compounds -- carbon-containing chemicals that can be ingredients for life. At this point in the mission, the instruments on the rover have not detected any definitive evidence of Martian organics.
Click to expand...
 
^ There are fascinating fracture networks of various scales all around the area. Possible mechanisms for their forming could be for example desiccation (mud drying), and thermal contraction.

Like proposed here: POLYGONAL FRACTURE NETWORKS, GALE CRATER, MARS

HiRISE images reveal distinct networks of fractures over much of the landing ellipse of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) in Gale Crater, and Curiosity landed with a few hundred meters of a particularly well-developed network. The geometry of the fractures, and the uniform size and shape of the intervening polygons suggest that they formed by contraction most probably near the ground surface. They are of direct interest to the primary goal of the MSL, which is to shed light on the past and present habitability of Mars, because the contractions fractures most likely reflect the former presence liquid water, a prerequisite for life, in at least in two ways. First, the loss of water can lead to large volumetric contraction in moist cohesive surface materials. Secondly, water provides sufficient cohesion for loose surface material to transmit stresses over length scales vastly exceeding the grain size, and to fracture either by forming ice in coarser, non-cohesive granular material, or by precipitating minerals that cement adjacent mineral grains. The mean size of Gale contraction fracture polygons at particular sites where they are most distinct ranges from 12 to 21 m, and the coefficient of variation ranges from 0.26 to 0.40. The polygons resemble those active today in Antarctica suggesting that they formed when seasonal temperatures fluctuated much more than they do today, perhaps during high obliquity periods. However, geomorphic and stratigraphic settings inferred from HiRISE images suggest that the fractures could have formed due to desiccation of meters-deep, moist, fine-grained sediments. The pervasive brecciation and arrays of inverted-fractures (ridge) patterns that are most common in the southern portion of the ellipse, south of the dune field at the base of Mt. Sharp, are consistent with a longer and more complex history involving impacts and other types of fractures, burial, alteration, and exhumation. We present the characteristics and geologic settings of the various fracture networks, and their significance for deciphering events in Gale Crater’s history.
Click to expand...
 
spin0 said:
^ Plus Bruno was not an astronomer or even a protoscientist. He was a religiuous mystic, a proto-pseudoscientist. Sort of like those new age guys who spout about their spiritual believes and randomly add the words "energy" or "quantum" here and there. Bruno just used the buzzwords of his time - like heliosentrism. Figuratively: If there had been a scientific conference of Kopernican scientists they'd burned Bruno themselves, and if Bruno appeared here on this forum we'd put him on a verbal stake for asserting things as truths without a shred of evidence (until banned for his argumentative habits).
Click to expand...
That is revolting. Bruno may have been right or wrong, but the Church imprisoned him for years and then inflicted a painful death on him. And included in the charge sheet was a reference to the plurality of worlds, as you do not deny.

But I agree that not every proponent of that idea was pursued by the Inquisition; I was merely taking issue with your assertion that it was never criticised.

So much for plurality ... But if you're going to raise the issue of the motion of the earth, then you really do have a problem. The Church DID repress that. Not at first, but it came to do so, and books proposing it were put on the Index. Anyway, the Church has no right to punish scholars for the inadequacy of their evidence, or excessive theoretical audacity, when these failings occur. Scientific theories, good or bad, are not the concern of the Church. Imagine if it was the other way round, and the Royal Society was torturing priests to death for not producing adequate "evidence" to justify the assertion that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, as well as from the Father! That would be about as sensible and justifiable.
 
Travis said:
No, I'm not talking about Bruno. The one I'm thinking of was condemned only for advocating a sun centered solar system. And it was in Spain.
Click to expand...


spin0 said:
It would be helpful if you could name him, as at least I'm not aware of anyone fitting that description. ...
ETA: Is it possible you are thinking about Miguel Serveto Conesa? He was a Spanish theologian, physician, cartographer, and Renaissance man well versed in: mathematics, astronomy, meteorology, geography, anatomy, medicine, poetry and the Bible. But then again he was burned by protestants in Geneva, and heliocentrism had nothing to do with it.
Click to expand...

Definitely OT, but I used to live in a street named after Miguel Servet and have several of his books.

As the information keeps coming in from Mars, I'll be sipping ice cold Tio Pepe in honour of this martyr Travis mentioned, once we figure out who they are.


They are of direct interest to the primary goal of the MSL, which is to shed light on the past and present habitability of Mars, because the contractions fractures most likely reflect the former presence liquid water, a prerequisite for life, in at least in two ways.
Click to expand...

Thanks for posting that, spin0!
It made my day.
 
pakeha said:
Definitely OT, but I used to live in a street named after Miguel Servet and have several of his books.

As the information keeps coming in from Mars, I'll be sipping ice cold Tio Pepe in honour of this martyr Travis mentioned, once we figure out who they are.

Thanks for posting that, spin0!
It made my day.
Click to expand...

Servetus was Spanish, but he was executed by John Calvin in Protestant Geneva in 1553. The Catholic Inquisition was after him as well, which is why he fled to Protestant territory. "Out of the frying pan ... " literally! He was burned to death. He held "heretical" views about the Trinity, and other arcane matters.

Maybe he didn't have enough "evidence", I suppose.
 
spin0 said:
ETA: Is it possible you are thinking about Miguel Serveto Conesa? He was a Spanish theologian, physician, cartographer, and Renaissance man well versed in: mathematics, astronomy, meteorology, geography, anatomy, medicine, poetry and the Bible. But then again he was burned by protestants in Geneva, and heliocentrism had nothing to do with it.
Click to expand...
True about the heliocentrism, but you must be aware that Servetus fled (in vain) to Protestant territory, because the Catholic Church had already charged him with heresy. Following his departure, he was burned in effigy by the Roman Church. Both sects were guilty of his death. See http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/535958/Michael-Servetus.
 
^ My feelings exactly when I started to follow Spirit and Oppy: geology 101 needed. I wish I could recommend good sources for introduction to geology/planetology, but I don't have any links at hand. Hopefully other members better versed in geology could provide some.


JPLNews reports what Curiosity has been up to recently: Curiosity Rover Report (Nov. 29, 2012): Curiosity Roves Again
(two days old, I know, but gives a good overview of the past week)


Remember the 5th scoopful from Rocknest, the unfounded rumouring about the SAM results, and how the rest of the sample was saved in the scoop?

Well, it's going to get rebaked in SAM: http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/news/c...ientist-ken-herkenhoff-looking-forward-to-agu
I'm MAHLI/MARDI PUL1 again today, and again no MAHLI or MARDI activities made it into the plan. The focus of the Sol 114 plan is to deliver another sample of the wind ripple to SAM. The last scoop sample was saved in CHIMRA to allow the option of analyzing another sample; we are exercising that option now. This new SAM analysis of the scoop sample is motivated in part by the desire to better understand the results of the previous SAM analysis. The preliminary results will be reported at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco next week. About 20,000 scientists are expected to attend this meeting, so I expect that the MSL session will be well attended.
Click to expand...
Now, this does not mean there's basis for expectation of "earthshaking" results. It's just to better assess and understand the previous results.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom