Curiosity Sparks Some Curiosity.

John Grotzinger, Scientist for the California Institute of Technology, had some interesting things to say at the fall meeting for the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco on 10/03/2012. The team announced that Curiosity did detect organic compounds in the first scoop of martian soil from the "Rock Nest" area on Mars, but it is still unclear if the organic compounds are indigenous to Mars.

John Grotzinger had made a statement two weeks prior, to December 3rd, 2012, saying that Curiosity had made a "discovery for the history books." Grotzinger responded to the hype over his comment stating, "You have to be careful about what you say and even more careful about how you say it. We're doing science at the speed of science in a world that goes at the speed of Instagrams. The enthusiasm that our team has is just misunderstood." This is a great and humbling reality of the world in which we currently reside. The discovery of organic compounds in the soil sample is a very exciting discovery. The possibilities these compounds would suggest are phenomenal. The scientists on the Curiosity team seemed to just be expressing their excitement and enthusiasm about the discovery, and it was taken far to directly by the general public. That raises the question in my mind; Would a high percentage of our population even know what a "discovery for the history books" would entail? To me, it seems like a bunch of presumptuous critics jumped on a bandwagon of erroneous dilettantes. In other words, some people think that evidence of extraterrestrial life must in some way resemble science fiction movies. Curiosity is simply on a two year mission to discover whether or not Mars can support microbial life. This discovery of carbon based compounds, or organic compounds, could possibly lead to this conclusion. Once the Curiosity team can refute the possibilities that the rover carried these compounds with it from Earth, or that the compounds are not part of the "background fall of cosmic materials," the discovery will be quite noteworthy. From the words of Paul Mahaffy, a NASA researcher who is SAM's lead scientist, "We really consider this a terrific milestone." The team still has a great bit of work ahead of them and, in my opinion, it will be well worth the wait for the official results of this discovery.

Image Credit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia16226.html