Life on Mars cast into doubt as Curiosity fails to find methane

Life on Mars less likely after Curiosity Rover disproves methane theory

[Click] Hi, is that David Bowie?

[Silence] …

It’s NASA here. We’ve got some news. While it’s not a conclusive answer, the Curiosity Rover wasn’t able to detect any traces of methane in the Gale Crater. Presence of the gas is one of the things that we were hoping would support our theories about life on Mars, so this comes as a bit of a blow. Now, there *are* terrestrial microbes that don’t generate methane, so it’s not as if this is a firm “no,” but it’s not looking anywhere near as likely as it was before. So, uh, does that help at all?

[Silence] …

Uh, well, thanks. Bye!

[Click]

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Mars Curiosity Rover Takes Its Longest Drive Yet (Without Drawing a Penis)

NASA has announced that the Curiosity Rover took its longest drive yet on the surface of Mars earlier this week. The longest one-day drive in the rover’s history occurred on September 5, putting it within viewing distance of a patch of rocks NASA calls Waypoint 1. NASA says that arriving at Waypoint 1 will signal that Curiosity is about 1/5th of the way to Mount Sharp, which is its ultimate destination.

curio rov

During this drive Curiosity traveled 464 feet to a location called Panorama Point where it took photos of the rocky outcrop it’s heading towards. Click the image below for a hi-res view of this rocky vista.

mars curiosity panorama point 600x234

The good news is this time NASA engineers have apparently succeeded in driving Curiosity without leaving the image of a massive penis on the surface of the red planet. I have attached the now infamous Mars penis image below, purely for scientific reasons.

mars penis1

Once Curiosity reaches Waypoint 1 it will spend a few days sampling area with its tools. The team hopes to determine if the rocks are related to what they expect to find that Mount Sharp. Curiosity landed inside of Gale Crater in August 2012.

Mars One Receives Over 200k Applications For Mars Colonization Project

Mars One Receives Over 200k Applications For Mars Colonization Project

We know how many people are looking forward to living life off on Mars, especially when you consider just how bad things have been getting on Earth lately with all of the changes in temperature as well as the gallons of radioactive fluid that’s being dumped into our ocean every day. People want off of this planet, which is why we weren’t so surprised to hear over 100,000 people signed up for the Mars One project last month. It turns out that total doubled as over 200,000 applications were received by the Netherlands-based private spaceflight project Mars One, and for the next several months, they’ll be narrowing down the applicants. (more…)

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  • Mars One Receives Over 200k Applications For Mars Colonization Project original content from Ubergizmo.

        



    Could Future Astronauts 3D Print Habitats Using Mars and Moon Soil?

    Could Future Astronauts 3D Print Habitats Using Mars and Moon Soil?

    Right now, there are dozens of theoretical proposals for how humans could eventually populate Mars (or the Moon), each as crazy as the next: Space elevator. Inflatables. Giant 3D printer. But there’s something wonderful about watching these zany concepts emerge, each with its own unique logic. The latest? A plan to create cave-like dwellings for the one-way astronauts aboard Mars One.

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    Mars One gets over 200,000 one-way astronaut applications

    Over 200,000 would-be space explorers applied for the first round of Mars One‘s Astronaut Selection Program, though there’s still several years – and a few more screenings – before the mission goes ahead. Not-for-profit Mars One opened up for applications earlier this year, offering the chance of a one-way trip from Earth to the red […]

    Curiosity Just Took the Sharpest Photos of a Solar Eclipse on Mars Yet

    Curiosity Just Took the Sharpest Photos of a Solar Eclipse on Mars Yet

    Thanks to Curiosity’s lonely existence, we just got the clearest, most detailed images of a solar eclipse that’s ever been taken from the surface of Mars—at least, the clearest images ever taken by humans.

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    NASA’s New Martian Explorer Will Explain Where All the Water Went

    NASA's New Martian Explorer Will Explain Where All the Water Went

    We know that Mars once had an Earth-like atmosphere dense enough to support liquid water on the surface of the planet, we’ve found the dry riverbeds and the presence of minerals only formed in water to prove it. We’re also pretty sure that the planet slowly lost that atmosphere into the depths of space on account of climate change. What we don’t know is why. And that’s where NASA’s brand new MAVEN satellite comes in.

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    An Endangered Animal Sperm Bank Will Let Us Bring Pandas to Space

    An Endangered Animal Sperm Bank Will Let Us Bring Pandas to Space

    Whether or not you think that certain endangered animals are worth all the fuss— *cough*pandas*cough*—judging by the internet’s recent, excited tittering over a potential panda pregnancy, the majority of people are very much pro-animal kingdom diversity. So much so, in fact, that a team of Japanese scientists has begun freeze-drying certain endangered animals’ sperm in the hopes of one day bringing them with us to other planets.

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    How Scientists Plan To Send Hibernating Astronauts to Mars

    How Scientists Plan To Send Hibernating Astronauts to Mars

    A lot of things are falling into place for NASA’s inevitable moonshot to Mars. (Mars-shot?) However, one of the original challenges remains one of the more elusive ones: How do you get the astronauts to live on a spaceship for six months without going crazy? You put them to sleep, that’s how.

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    Mars Curiosity Rover Condenses 12 Months Of Expedition Footage Into A Single Video

    Anniversaries are always an occasion to remember, never mind that they are joyful or sad, although I am quite sure that most folks would prefer to fall back onto the former instead of the latter. Having said that, a couple of days ago, we did bring you word about how Mars Curiosity Rover “celebrated” its birthday by “singing” to itself, and here we are with footage of Mars Curiosity Rover’s entire 12 months of expedition to date, condensed into a single video footage that was specially filmed from the rover’s eye view.

    Time has definitely moved on, and it seemed like just yesterday when we brought you word that the Mars Curiosity Rover has just landed, even when it was captured in HD video. What were you doing when the Mars Curiosity Rover made landfall over on the Red Planet? Unfortunately for all of you alien watchers out there, the Mars Curiosity Rover has yet to capture any image of movement of alien life – unlike in the Transformers movie, but then again, that’s all science fiction, isn’t it? Having said that, would you want to pick up a LEGO version of the Mars Curiosity Rover? After all, it had been a pretty hard “worker” for humanity, sending back billion pixel shots and what not.

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  • Mars Curiosity Rover Condenses 12 Months Of Expedition Footage Into A Single Video original content from Ubergizmo.