Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Wouldn't you know?

Martian methane probe in trouble





"Without nailing the methane numbers, it will be hard for all scientists to agree on a source for the gas. For now, many say it is probably due to heating of water and carbon dioxide with a mineral called olivine, rather than life, says Sushil Atreya, a member of the PFS team from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor."

First the Beagle 2 crashes. Now this.

2 comments:

Boogey_Man said...

In my best Church Lady voice "..How conveeeEEEEEeeenient".
Ive grown unfriendly towards conspiracy theories but this is to much. What the hell could be so scary on Mars? Short of Chuthullu living under the Face I cannt imagine why they would work so hard to not look for life on Mars.

Mac said...

The ESA was our last best hope for resolving the "biomarker" controversy in the near future. This is a real setback, assuming the MRO doesn't have similar instrumentation -- and knowing JPL's bias, I'm guessing it doesn't.