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• Need Microscope on Mars now, and Thirty Years ago on Viking.

  23 December 2012

  

  Why have we not taken this basic instrument to Mars? Sometimes the most obvious things somehow get lost when large complex missions are  being planned and we can’t see the forest for the trees. The new Curiosity rover has not found life but did find some compounds related to life. The Mars Viking mission originally thought they had found life in the  1970s but the data was not conclusive. New analysis of the Viking data in 2012 shows a significant probability that indeed life was found. Why then has no mission ever taken a microscope to Mars? The Viking mission showed signs of microbial life as soon as a nutrient liquid was introduced to the mars soil. A microscope could have confirmed this.  One of the most basic tools any scientist uses is a microscope and it is well past time we took one to Mars. [adrotate group="1"] We even came up with  a name for it…Microscope On Mars or MOM (cute huh?). NASA has stated that they would like a Mars soil return mission. If they are serious about [...]

• We were driving on mars one day…in the merry merry month of..December

  20 December 2012

  

  Curiosity Rover’s Traverse, August through November 2012 Since landing at a site  named “Bradbury Landing,” The rover has traveled 1,703 feet (519 meters) to an overlook position beside “Point Lake”. The rover landed on Aug. 5 Pacific Time (Aug. 6, Universal Time).  It worked on scoops of soil for a few weeks at the drift of windblown sand called “Rocknest.” The place called “Glenelg” is where three types of terrain meet. The depression called “Yellowknife Bay” is a potential location for selecting the first target rock for Curiosity’s hammering drill. All of these sites are within Gale Crater and north of the mountain called Mount Sharp in the middle of the crater. After using its drill in the Glenelg area, the rover’s main science destination will be on the lower reaches of Mount Sharp. The base image from the map is from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera (HiRISE) in NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

• Curiosity at Layered Martian Outcrop ‘Shaler’ in ‘Glenelg’ Area

  14 December 2012

  

  PASADENA, Calif. — The NASA Mars rover Curiosity drove 63 feet (19 meters) northeastward early Monday, Dec. 10, approaching a step down into a slightly lower area called “Yellowknife Bay,” where researchers intend to choose a rock to drill. The drive was Curiosity’s fourth consecutive driving day since leaving a site near an outcrop called “Point Lake,” where it arrived last month. These drives totaled 260 feet (79 meters) and brought the mission’s total odometry to 0.37 mile (598 meters). The route took the rover close to an outcrop called “Shaler,” where scientists used Curiosity’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument and Mast Camera (Mastcam) to assess the rock’s composition and observe its layering. Before departure from Point Lake, a fourth sample of dusty sand that the rover had been carrying from the “Rocknest” drift was ingested and analyzed by Curiosity’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument. Curiosity ended Monday’s drive about 30 percent shorter than planned for the day when it detected a slight difference between two calculations of its tilt, not an immediate risk, [...]

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