The White House is Briefed: Phoenix About to Announce "Potential For Life" on Mars

[chaseter]

I swear to God this better not be Michael Bay pulling another Mars Transformers viral.

 

[Apollo]

or cloverfield 2 early marketing...

 

[Spider-Bite]

Whatever you do, don't brief the President. he'll probably lie to congress and get them to authorize a war against Mars, for having WMDs and connections to Alquida.

 

[Addendum]

There once was life on Mars. Then the Furons annihilated it

 

[[A]]

Nice.. Can you imagine living on Mars? Dr Manhattan's Building Company will make billions!

 

[Addendum]

And don't forget the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator depot

 

[Kud-Dukan]

Whatever you do, don't brief the President. he'll probably lie to congress and get them to authorize a war against Mars, for having WMDs and connections to Alquida.

I can just imagine him standing there trying to convince Congress to launch a preemptive nuclear strike on Mars to counter the Martian threat. t:

 

[Captain Planet!]

Any news yet?

 

[moraldeficiency]

I doubt it will be anything big like most of you think. When they were doing experiments to prove spontanteous creation (I think it was called that, the frogs from mud theory) they needed certian elements, compounds and an electrical spark to create an envirnment which could have spawned actual life. Chances are they just found another of these substances which would make life more possible.

 

[Jennifer Walters]

I personally hope they found the Ice Warriors.

 

[Captain Planet!]

I doubt it will be anything big like most of you think. When they were doing experiments to prove spontanteous creation (I think it was called that, the frogs from mud theory) they needed certian elements, compounds and an electrical spark to create an envirnment which could have spawned actual life. Chances are they just found another of these substances which would make life more possible.

Yeah, probably something small, but even something small is big imo.

 

[moraldeficiency]

Yeah, probably something small, but even something small is big imo.

I agree, but people are talking about aliens and artifacts and such and that's a bit much. If they found an alien, someone connected would have leaked it by now in some way. Secrets are hard to keep, I-found-an-actual-alien type secrets would be impossible (for researchers in Phoenix at least).

 

[Norman Osborn]

[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]NASA Scientist: Reports of Mars Life Finding Are 'Bogus'
[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]By Andrea Thompson
Senior Writer
[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=arial,helvetica]posted: 04 August 2008
01:01 pm ET[/FONT]

Rumblings in the media suggest some intriguing findings from NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander mission that relate to the question of life, specifically whether it could have survived on Mars in the past.

The issue bubbled up when it was reported Friday that some interesting results from Phoenix's wet chemistry laboratory, part of the Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer (MECA) suite of instruments, were mentioned in a White House briefing.

Not so, says Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith, of the University of Arizona, who denied that any details of the MECA findings had been shared and called the reports "bogus and damaging information."

The Aviation Week & Space Technology report came on the heels of the Thursday NASA announcement that Phoenix had confirmed the presence of water ice at its landing site in Mars' arctic regions, first detected in 2002 by NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter. MECA team members were not present at the press briefing at which the water-ice announcement was made.

"The goal [of having no MECA team members present] was to prevent them from being asked any questions that could reveal information before NASA is ready to make an announcement, sources say," the Aviation Week article said, adding that, "The Bush Administration's Presidential Science Advisor's office, however, has been briefed on the new information that NASA hopes to release as early as mid August."

But Smith told SPACE.com that this was "not true, MECA results have not been discussed at the White House."

"There is no one who knows either on the [Phoenix] project in Tucson or at [NASA] HQ who knows where this information came from," Smith said in a subsequent email.

Smith also said that the MECA team was not present at the Thursday briefing because "they had nothing new to report, the story was about water ice."

When the writer of the Aviation Week story, Craig Covault, was contacted by SPACE.com, he attributed much of the confusion and media hubbub to other news outlets picking up his story and mistakenly reporting that his article said that NASA had discovered life on Mars.

"Note the [Aviation Week] story said very, very clearly three times or so, NO life on Mars detected and Phoenix can NOT [detect life] in the first place," Covault wrote in an email.

Smith added that the results from the analysis of the second soil sample in MECA's wet chemistry lab didn't have any bearing on the question of Mars' past habitability "in any direct way."

"We are attempting to assess the chemicals and minerals that make up the soil composition," he explained. "We are now about half way through the process and there are several conflicting points of view. This is not a good time to go public with half the story."

Covault said that he stands by his story and noted that his piece mentioned the ongoing review of MECA data.

The wet chemistry laboratory has four teacup-sized beakers, each used only once. Samples of the Martian dirt are place in a beaker and mixed with water brought from Earth.

Sensors on the inner surface of the beakers act like electronic tongues and "taste" the dirt to detect salts that can dissolve in water. The sensors can also detect the pH of the surface.

All of this information gives scientists a picture of what the surface layer of dirt looks like now and whether or not it might have been a habitable area at some point in the planet's past.

MECA's first analysis showed that the Martian regolith contained several soluble minerals necessary for life, including potassium, magnesium and chloride. The surface also had an alkaline pH, which on Earth is suitable for growing some plants, such as asparagus. The second sample, currently being analyzed, was delivered to the instrument on July 7.

 

[Jennifer Walters]

Blows. Damn it! No Ice Warriors.

 

[Apollo]

i sense there will be Cover-up Conspiracy videos on you tube any day now...

 

[Captain Planet!]

Sounds like a cover-up.

 

[Carcharodon]

I doubt it will be anything big like most of you think. When they were doing experiments to prove spontanteous creation (I think it was called that, the frogs from mud theory) they needed certian elements, compounds and an electrical spark to create an envirnment which could have spawned actual life. Chances are they just found another of these substances which would make life more possible.

Abiogenesis is the accepted term.

 

[Poetic Chaos]

Just released by NASA

Spoiler