Skip to comments.Mars Mystery: What HAS Curiosity Discovered?
Posted on 11/20/2012 1:45:34 PM PST by Red Badger Science isn't
something that just happens overnight. It takes many
measurements, oodles of analysis, re-testing and re-analysis
before any groundbreaking announcement can be made. So, on the
surface of Mars, inside Gale Crater on a plain called Aeolis
Palus, our tenacious six-wheeled Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)
is doing cutting-edge laboratory work on an alien world and
mission scientists are itching to announce a "historic"
discovery. "This data is gonna be one for the history books.
It's looking really good," John Grotzinger, lead scientist of
the MSL mission, said in an interview with NPR. But what is he
referring to and why all the secrecy? For the past few weeks,
rover Curiosity has been busily scooping dirt from a sandy ridge
in a geologically interesting location called "Rocknest." Using
a little scooper attached to its instrument-laden robotic arm,
Curiosity has been carefully digging, sha