NASA's Curiosity Rover Picks Up No Signs of Microbial Life on Mars ... Yet?
The rover is just four months into a two-year mission on the Red Planet.
Anyone hoping for the detection of signs of life on Mars by NASA's Curiosity rover may be disappointed with information released during a press conference Monday. First, the $2.5 billion rover that landed in Mars on Aug. 5 is there to determine if the Red Planet could ever have supported microbial life. Scientists are particularly interested in organic compounds. But there's more that complicates the mission for those who just want to know if there's life on Mars. "Organic molecules do not equal life," Patrick Rowan writes for The Republican. "They are just a major component." But Rowan just wants to know — Is there life on Mars or not? "You’d think that after all the probes we’ve sent there over the years — including four rovers (two…
Michael Robinson
3:22 pm on Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Mars is like an Earth where a few variables were tweaked early on. It's useful to study for comparison. Same reason we should send more probes to Venus. more ›