6 ms·
It's either a lot of water or some sign of life or both. crosses fingers
by indiecore 14y ago
It's either a lot of water or some sign of life or both. crosses fingers
- InclinedPlane 14y agoWe already know that Mars is lousy with water. For most of the surface all you have to do is dig down maybe a meter or so and you'll find permafrost everywhere. I suspect it's some sort of sign of complex organics, which would be a strong sign of past life.
- diminish 14y agoMaybe the Higgs Boson? (Ok; jokes belong to Reddit.) Big news for scientists may end up being unnoticeable small developments to the general public. Earthshaking may be key here, like an organic compound unexpected there.
- freehunter 14y agoThe question here is, is "earthshaking" something NPR is describing it as, or is it actually how the NASA scientist is describing it? The quote says it's something for the history books, the "earthshaking" remark is made outside of the quote.
- nitrogen 14y agoJust fantasizing here about potential fodder for the next decade of science fiction, but what would be even cooler than finding complex organics would be finding complex artificial materials (plastics, refined metals, glass, etc.).
- jmcqk6 14y agoThe thing about finding complex artificial materials is the the likely explanation would be "it came come the rover." While finding complex materials would be earth shattering, the threshold of accepting a martian source for a reading like is much higher than it would be for accepting the same for organic findings.
- debacle 14y agoCould also be a lot of some other important element or molecule. Or could be a scientific whiff. Looks like they're keeping their mouths shut until they can scientifically confirm the data.
- sunwooz 14y agowhat would they detect in the raw data if they scooped up a colony of extremophiles?
- debacle 14y agoExcrement or remains, likely.
- petercooper 14y agoI'm still holding out for tiny 1 millimeter tall people who run on photosynthesis.
- petercooper 14y agoI got 9 points for this. What is happening to this site! ;-)
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]