from the in-a-surprise-twist,-the-Rover-contaminates-Chile-with-Martian-microbes dept.
Due to its extreme dryness, the Atacama Desert in Chile is one of the most important environments on Earth for researchers who need to approximate the conditions of Mars.
Working in 90-plus-degree heat in arguably the driest place on Earth, the team behind NASA's Atacama Rover Astrobiology Drilling Studies, or ARADS, project just completed its second season of tests. The project aims to show that roving, drilling and life-detection can all happen together, with the goal of demonstrating the technical feasibility and scientific value of a mission that searches for evidence of life on Mars.
Thirty-five researchers, scientists, engineers and support staff spent a month testing tools and collecting scientific data on how life exists in the high desert today and how it first developed in this environment.
Geological and soil mineral evidence suggests that extremely dry conditions have persisted in the Atacama Desert for at least 10 to 15 million years, and possibly far longer. Coupled with strong, persistent ultraviolet radiation from the sun, this means that what little life exists in the Atacama is in the form of microbes living underground or inside rocks.
Similarly, if life exists or ever existed on Mars, the planet's surface dryness and extensive radiation exposure would likely drive it underground. That makes locations like the Atacama good places to practice looking for life on Mars.
Is the rover a failure if it doesn't immediately return to the researchers and indicate life?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Justin Case on Thursday March 16 2017, @04:01PM (4 children)
Is the rover a failure if it doesn't immediately return to the researchers and indicate life?
No.
Every experiment, correctly designed and completed, is a success because you learn something.
Sometimes you find what you expected, sometimes you don't. Both results add to your knowledge.
Science is supposed to be repeatable. So it already is thought that water is wet, but you ought to be able to repeat that test and verify it for yourself.
We have way too much goal and fame oriented "science"*. I want to discover ET life! I want to be the person who cured cancer! Those are emotional goals, not science, though science can help you reach them.
So, if a rover doesn't detect life in a place where we think there's life, we've learned something. Further examination may reveal whether the rover was defective or whether our assumption of life was incorrect. Either way, new knowledge for the win!
* You can thank the funding mechanisms for that. No exciting publication, no grant extension.
(Score: 4, Touché) by bob_super on Thursday March 16 2017, @04:18PM (2 children)
Not to explain the joke ... but if the rover can't find life in the Atacama, let's not bother to send it to Mars as is.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday March 17 2017, @12:47PM (1 child)
I had an image of the rover rolling right past the living, breathing, thinking scientists and reporting: "No life here. No intelligence detected." If it functioned as advertised it would get the BEGIN signal, spin about, and point at the scientists.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday March 17 2017, @04:05PM
Why point, when it can analyze them with its laser and digging tools?
It's also built to be highly autonomous and long-lasting.
Hollywood lied to us! The machine uprising doesn't start with military drones, but with interplanetary rovers!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 16 2017, @05:13PM
The main lesson from the Viking landers and Mars meteorites is that it's very difficult to rule out odd chemical reactions and geological processes for any result that resembles life. Natural processes can be very "creative" in how they can end up mirroring life.
Until something is seen actually moving, eating, metabolizing, and reproducing under a microscope; it will be a question mark. And even if such were found, it may be hard to rule out contamination.
I don't expect easy answers from any one sample or mission.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Thursday March 16 2017, @04:26PM (1 child)
Is the rover a failure if it doesn't immediately return to the researchers and indicate life?
If it's a ESA rover then not finding life on Earth is a partial success, considering the rover itself only made it as far as Brazil due to technical difficulties.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 16 2017, @05:03PM
I can't get that "Mars has bird-people!" episode of Gilligan's Island out of my head.