http://www.dailymail.co.uk/...rtian-soil--just-yet.html


so what do you think it is? I say they found a fosil

I think they found gold, and they aren't going to reveal it cuz they don't want the Discovery Channel to know about it to keep the Hoffman crew from going there (Todd might just go anyway).

Hoffa

I'm leaning towards a fossil of some kind. They know water exists on Mars in Ice and they wouldn't find liquid water that close to the surface anyway.

I guess we will find out in a few weeks.

for the lazy people...

Mars Curiosity rover team set to announce 'major discovery' on surface of Red Planet that 'will be one for the history books'

Rover team make finding with instrument designed to identity signs of life
'Earthshaking' discovery will be fully announced early next month

I will guess a microscopic organism.

A twinkie?

they found mARTIAN's fluff.

how they going to fit all that data into a book?
men really are from Mars? ahhh. they found martian's porn cache. not sure that i want to see it. and it's probably bad for their libido also.

I'm betting it's nothing of major significance to anyone outside the scientific community. At best, an incremental step supporting the possibility that life could have once existed on Mars, but nothing conclusive.

Probably less significant than proof that water once existed in significant quantities on the planet.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

decepticons

Could explain why *no one* has found his ass since 1975 :P

Mars is bi-curious

My bet is one of them lost their virginity.

I'll give a shot at a half-educated guess ;)

Considering the sample location and its history, it is very difficult to predict what they have found.

They are sampling in an ancient stream bed going back to the early days of Mars when organics were produced and sedimented under a thick atmosphere.

Then the Gale crater was filled with aeolian (wind blown or wind eroded) sediments well before the atmosphere was thinned.

And now aeolian erosion has excavated down to the stream bed again.

I'm going to take a guess that they may have found the 'desert varnish' suggested by previous imaging of Mars.
(ref: http://www.astrobio.net/...71/desert-varnish-on-mars)
On Earth, desert varnish is a clay coating found on exposed rock surfaces in arid environments. This varnish coating is typically about a micron thick and on earth contains iron and manganese oxides and organic matter formed by microbial processes.

Although desert varnish testing with high levels of Mn would not be direct evidence of ancient life, it would be very strong evidence indeed.

ref: http://www.icamsr.org/..._4495-13_rock_varnish.pdf

You could be full of it, but damn that sounds pretty cool. I hope you are not full of it. :D

what he said

this could rock the church

wow, I agree with Foog.

Cyref is never full of fluff.
He is easily one of the sanest, smartest people I've ever known.

Of course, that presumes that I am a decent judge of character.

He could still be wrong while not being full of fluff. We just don't know right now what they have found, but it does look like an educated guess.
Would be so cool if that's what it is.

LaF HAS DEATH STAR

The humans, they found the allspark!

Zip,

who is "the church"

vatican.

It would not rock the Church, though it would certainly change some interpretations. The modern Church is not nearly as anti-science as it is made out to be. It would 'rock' some fundamentalist Protestant groups, though.

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/...cans_top_astronomer_says/

I think they found a twinkie on mars ...

:)

sheesh Hawk if i'm so sane and smart what am i doing hanging out here? And why am i not wealthy??
8^\
..but thanks for the kind words, you're an A+ friend.

I'm just hoping NASA is going to justify the hype.
A lot of the speculation is that they are going to announce the confirmation of organic molecules. If that's what it is I'll really not be impressed; 'organic' in this sense doesn't necessarily mean that it comes from life at all.

It only refers to chemical compounds made from carbon bonded to hydrogen. Essential TO life as we know it, but not necessarily FROM life.

We already know that such molecules can be formed in simple chemical reactions within 2nd gen dense star-forming intergalactic clouds and can be found on comets and meteorites and even on interplanetary dust particles. We already know such particles must rain down on Mars all the time, as they do on Earth.

The instruments on Curiosity cannot directly confirm the evidence of life past or present; they cannot distinguish whether any organic molecules they may find are biological in origin. That will be for another mission, possibly - probably - by ESA.

But it could detect what i described in my first post here. And that would be worthy of the hype we've been hearing.

Anything less, following this 'earthshaking' and 'for the history books' kind of hype, and i'm demanding a refund!

there are many religious ppls/groups who don't believe in creation and say that god created us all, if curiosity found something which proves that there has been life at mars then .......

then god put it there

Oh crap it's Starscream isn't it?! It's a trap, run away mars rover!

If they found a fossil I don't think they would have to worry much about confirming it wasn't from the Rover leading me to believe they found traces of something needed for organic life. I doubt it will be as interesting as folks suspect.

lol@zip

latc: its megatron.

you know that is what they are going to say

A wal-mart bag and some cigarette butts

And writing on the sand next to them, "Earl was here"