NASA report below not quite living up to the hype, but no doubt the hype helped increase the advertising revenue of various media outlets living moment to moment on ratings and Internet site visits etc... I wonder how many media scandals are generated by people being secretly paid on the side to create a public media feeding frenzy? Regardless of whether this actually happens, if I was Lindsay Lohan, I'd want a cut of the advertising revenue generated from media exploitation of her personal problems. Geez!<br>
--------------------------------------------<br><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20121203.html">http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20121203.html</a><br><p>
PASADENA, Calif. - NASA's Mars Curiosity rover has used its full array
of instruments to analyze Martian soil for the first time, and found a
complex chemistry within the Martian soil.
Water and sulfur and chlorine-containing substances, among other
ingredients, showed up in samples Curiosity's arm delivered to an
analytical laboratory inside the rover.
</p><p>
Detection of the substances during this early phase of the mission
demonstrates the laboratory's capability to analyze diverse soil and
rock samples over the next two years. Scientists also have been
verifying the capabilities of the rover's instruments.
</p><p>
Curiosity is the first Mars rover able to scoop soil into analytical
instruments. The specific soil sample came from a drift of windblown
dust and sand called "Rocknest." The site lies in a relatively flat part
of Gale Crater still miles away from the rover's main destination on
the slope of a mountain called Mount Sharp. The rover's laboratory
includes the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) suite and the Chemistry and
Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument. SAM used three methods to analyze gases
given off from the dusty sand when it was heated in a tiny oven. One
class of substances SAM checks for is organic compounds --
carbon-containing chemicals that can be ingredients for life.
</p><p>
"We have no definitive detection of Martian organics at this point, but
we will keep looking in the diverse environments of Gale Crater," said
SAM Principal Investigator Paul Mahaffy of NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center in Greenbelt, Md.
</p><p>
Curiosity's APXS instrument and the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera
on the rover's arm confirmed Rocknest has chemical-element composition
and textural appearance similar to sites visited by earlier NASA Mars
rovers Pathfinder, Spirit and Opportunity.
</p><p>
Curiosity's team selected Rocknest as the first scooping site because it
has fine sand particles suited for scrubbing interior surfaces of the
arm's sample-handling chambers. Sand was vibrated inside the chambers to
remove residue from Earth. MAHLI close-up images of Rocknest show a
dust-coated crust one or two sand grains thick, covering dark, finer
sand.
</p><p>
"Active drifts on Mars look darker on the surface," said MAHLI Principal
Investigator Ken Edgett, of Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego.
"This is an older drift that has had time to be inactive, letting the
crust form and dust accumulate on it."
</p><p>
CheMin's examination of Rocknest samples found the composition is about
half common volcanic minerals and half non-crystalline materials such as
glass. SAM added information about ingredients present in much lower
concentrations and about ratios of isotopes. Isotopes are different
forms of the same element and can provide clues about environmental
changes. The water seen by SAM does not mean the drift was wet. Water
molecules bound to grains of sand or dust are not unusual, but the
quantity seen was higher than anticipated.
</p><p>
SAM tentatively identified the oxygen and chlorine compound perchlorate.
This is a reactive chemical previously found in arctic Martian soil by
NASA's Phoenix Lander. Reactions with other chemicals heated in SAM
formed chlorinated methane compounds -- one-carbon organics that were
detected by the instrument. The chlorine is of Martian origin, but it is
possible the carbon may be of Earth origin, carried by Curiosity and
detected by SAM's high sensitivity design.
</p><p>
"We used almost every part of our science payload examining this drift,"
said Curiosity Project Scientist John Grotzinger of the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "The synergies of the instruments
and richness of the data sets give us great promise for using them at
the mission's main science destination on Mount Sharp."
</p><p>
NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project is using Curiosity to assess
whether areas inside Gale Crater ever offered a habitable environment
for microbes. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, a division
of Caltech, manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate
in Washington, and built Curiosity.
</p><p>
For more information about Curiosity and other Mars missions, visit: <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mars">http://www.nasa.gov/mars</a> .
</p><p>
You can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at: <a href="http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity">http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity</a> and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity">http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity</a> .
</p>
<div class="space_div">Dwayne Brown Headquarters, Washington <br></div><span class="credits"> 202-358-1726 <br> <a href="mailto:dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov">dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov</a> <br><br> Guy Webster 818-354-6278 <br> Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.<br>
<a href="mailto:guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov">guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov</a><br> <br> Nancy Neal Jones<br> Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.<br> 301-286-0039<br> <a href="mailto:nancy.n.jones@nasa.gov">nancy.n.jones@nasa.gov</a><br>
-----------------------------------------<br>Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett<br></span><br>