21st Century Innovative Technologies and Developments as also discoveries, curiosity ( insolite)...

No, NASA hasn’t discovered life on Mars yet—but a new result makes it seem like maybe, at some point in the planet’s history, the conditions were ripe for some extraterrestrial beings. Maybe.

The scientists behind experiments conducted by the Curiosity rover are today reporting two results that make the Red Planet’s story even more interesting. One group found carbon-containing organic matter in 3.5-billion-year-old rock. Another noticed the methane levels around Curiosity varied by the season. Combined, these results present tantalizing hints of a potentially habitable Martian past.

From everything we can tell of the chemistry and the minerals deposited in the Gale crater where Curiosity is stationed, “we think it was a habitable environment,” Jennifer Eigenbrode from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center told Gizmodo. “It had the ability to support life—but doesn’t mean life were there.

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https://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-innovative-technologies-and-developments/?&tag=Mars

We once thought of Mars as a dried up husk of a planet with no significant water resources on its surface. After further study, scientists have discovered the Red Planet has vast amounts of water ice, and there may even be some water flowing on its surface. Mars’ water reserves may even be more accessible than we believed. A new analysis of past NASA data points to water ice near the Martian equator where scientists thought it could not exist.

NASA didn’t have to send a new probe to Mars to figure this out. In fact, the instrument used to obtain this data has long since been retired. Scientists reevaluated data from the NASA Odyssey Spacecraft, which was in operation between 2002 and 2009. The goal of this mission was to map the surface of Mars while also looking for evidence of water. It was used to identify landing sites for surface missions, and to this day still acts as a data relay for the Curiosity rover.

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http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-innovative-technologies-and-developments/?&tag=Mars

http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-innovative-technologies-and-developments/?&tag=Water

NASA officials say the Curiosity rover has made its first scoop of the surface of planet Mars and has detected a bright object on the ground.

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http://phys.org/news/2012-10-mars-rover-curiosity-scoops-bright.html