11/21/2012
The scientists working on the Mars Curiosity rover mission have found something "earthshaking," some data that is going to be "one for the history books." A recent report by Curiosty’s principal investigator, geologist John Grotzinger of Caltech, says that Curiosity has uncovered exciting new results from a sample of Martian soil recently scooped up and placed in the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument. Curiosity’s SAM instrument contains an array of tools that can vaporize soil and rocks to analyze them and measure the abundances of certain light elements such as carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen – chemicals typically associated with life. Because it’s so potentially earth-shaking, Grotzinger said the team is checking and double-checking their results, which are expected to be revealed at a NASA press conference during the 2012 American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco from 3–7 Dec. (Image Credit: NASA)
More Info > (Space.com)