[meteorite-list] ET phone Nome...

[Sterling K. Webb]

Hi, All,

    The interesting part is not a potential discovery
of... something. These is the parts I find fascinating:

> ...avoiding any questions... They have also made
> the decision to discuss the results with the Bush
> Administration's Presidential Science Advisor's
> office before a press conference...

    Is the question what sort of "spin" should we put
on Martian permafrost? What are the political implications
of Martian soil? Should we hold up the announcement
until after the elections? What is the President's position
on "dirt," anyway?

    Well, Galileo had to run his findings by the Inquisition.
In the old Soviet Union, scientists had to have the approval
of branches of the Central Committee to publish or speak.
This is not like that, of course; this is completely different.

    It just looks exactly the same.


> I just hope we're not getting excited over
> something benign.

    Hmm, you don't want the news to be "benign,"
meaning "good, helpful"? Does this mean you'd prefer
the news be something its opposite, namely "malign"
(evil, harmful)? I'm trying to figure out what a "malign"
Martian soil component would be.


> it is hard to guess as to what the MECA's second soil
> test has discovered. What ever it is, it sounds pretty
> significant... [with] extraordinary steps to avoid any
> more details being leaked to the outside world.

It's a fine guessing game. Here a description of the MECA
package and what it does and how it does it:
http://planetary.chem.tufts.edu/Phoenix/MECA.html
The Wet Chemistry Lab has "sensors... for the determination
of a wide variety of inorganic anions, cations, selected
heavy metals (via ASV), and electrochemical parameters."
There's a list of test targets in that URL. None of them
look that exciting to me, but chemistry always was my
worst subject.

Ideas?


Sterling K. Webb
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Darren Garrison" <cynapse at charter.net>
To: "meteorite list" <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Saturday, August 02, 2008 11:56 AM
Subject: [meteorite-list] ET phone Nome...


... as in Alaska.  Because, see, the Phoenix lander is at the cold polar
outskirts of Mars, and Nome is at the-- ah, forget  it.

http://www.universetoday.com/2008/08/02/the-white-house-is-briefed-phoenix-about-to-announce-potential-for-life-on-mars/

It would appear that the US President has been briefed by Phoenix scientists
about the discovery of something more "provocative" than the discovery of 
water
existing on the Martian surface. This news comes just as the Thermal and 
Evolved
Gas Analyzer (TEGA) confirmed experimental evidence for the existence of 
water
in the Mars regolith on Thursday. Whilst NASA scientists are not claiming 
that
life once existed on the Red Planet's surface, new data appears to indicate 
the
"potential for life" more conclusively than the TEGA water results. 
Apparently
these new results are being kept under wraps until further, more detailed
analysis can be carried out, but we are assured that this announcement will 
be
huge.

So why is there all this secrecy? According to scientists in communication 
with
Aviation Week & Space Technology, the next big discovery will need to be 
mulled
over for a while before it is announced to the world. In fact, the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory science team for the MECA wet-chemistry instrument 
that
made these undisclosed findings were kept out of the July 31st news 
conference
(confirming water) so additional analysis could be carried out, avoiding any
questions that may have revealed their preliminary results. They have also 
made
the decision to discuss the results with the Bush Administration's 
Presidential
Science Advisor's office before a press conference between mid-August and 
early
September.

Although good news, Thursday's announcement of the discovery of water on 
Mars
comes as no surprise to mission scientists and some are amused by the 
media's
reaction to the TEGA results. "They have discovered water on Mars for the 
third
or fourth time," one senior Mars scientist joked. These new MECA results 
are,
according to the Phoenix team, a little more complex than the water 
"discovery."
Scientists are keen to point out however, that this secretive news will in 
no
way indicate the existence of life (past or present) on Mars; Phoenix simply 
is
not equipped make this discovery. What it can do is test the Mars soil for
compounds suitable to support life. The MECA instrument does have 
microscopes
capable of resolving bacterial-scale life forms however, but this is not the
focus of the forthcoming announcement, sources say.

This new MECA discovery, combined with TEGA data will probably expose 
something
more compelling, completing another piece of the puzzle in the search for 
the
correct conditions for life as we know it to survive on Mars. Critical to 
this
search is to understand how the recently confirmed water and Mars regolith
behave together under the Phoenix lander in the cold Martian arctic.

The MECA instrument had already made the landmark discovery that Mars "soil" 
was
much like the soil more familiar on Earth. This finding prompted scientists 
to
indicate that the minerals and pH levels in the regolith could support some
terrestrial plants, indicating this would be useful for future Mars 
settlers.

What with the discovery of water, and the discovery that Mars soil is very 
much
like the stuff we find on Earth, it is hard to guess as to what the MECA's
second soil test has discovered. What ever it is, it sounds pretty 
significant,
especially as NASA and the University of Arizona are taking extraordinary 
steps
to avoid any more details being leaked to the outside world. I just hope 
were
not getting excited over something benign.
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