NASA’s Opportunity Rover is a special kind of vehicle. Not only did it set the record for longest distance driven on another world and discover the most compelling evidence for life on Mars thus far, it also surpassed its 90 day mission by a grand total of 3560 days, as of this past July 7th. In other words, the Opportunity Rover just celebrated its tenth anniversary, and people all over the world are marking the occasion by acknowledging the rover’s many contributions.
These include discovering the first meteorite found outside of Earth, a temperature profile of the Martian atmosphere, and uncovering a series tiny, iron-rich spheres known as “blueberries” that hinted at a time when Mars had water. In fact, Opportunity’s most important discovery may have come just last month.
This consisted of a rock that proves that Martian water was once drinkable, which in turn suggests strongly that life could once have thrived there. On top of that, it captured some amazing photos, long before Curiosity was sending back its hefty batch of panoramas. But of course, Opportunity had its share of trials and tribulations as well.
Foremost amongst these was the two months back in 2005 that it spent spent in a sand dune before its operators were able to wriggle it free centimeter by centimeter. And on the rover’s second day on Mars, it also experienced some shoulder joint problems, which proved to be the first of many, many mechanical problems.
And yet, all of that seems worth it now. After being eclipsed by its larger, more recent arrival – the Curiosity Rover – Opportunity has battled back with its incredible longevity. Who’s to say how much longer the little rover that could will remain in operation? And who’s to say what it will uncover. At this rate, its doesn’t seem unlikely that it will beat its cousin to the punch of finding the Holy Grail – organic particles on Mars!
And be sure to enjoy this video look-back at Opportunity produced by Space.com:
Ever since the Opportunity and Curiosity Rovers began their research stint on the red planet, evidence has been pouring in that indicates that the planet once supported life. And now, by examining the compositions of Martian meteorites found on Earth and data provided by the Mars rovers, Scientists from the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford have determined that the planet once boasted an oxygen-rich atmosphere.
The key determinant was the fact that the Martian surface rocks were five times richer in nickel than the meteorites found on Earth, a find which cast doubt on whether the meteorites were typical volcanic products. Whilst it is possible that the geological composition of Mars varies immensely from region to region, the team believes that it is more likely that the differences arise through a process known as subduction – in which material is recycled into the interior.
The scientists suggest that the Martian surface was oxidized very early in the history of the planet and that, through subduction, this oxygen-rich material was drawn into the shallow interior and recycled back to the surface during eruptions 4 billion years ago. The meteorites, by contrast, are much younger volcanic rocks that emerged from deeper within the planet and so were less influenced by this process.
As Professor Bernard Wood, the senior author of a study that appeared in Nature magazine, put it:
What we have shown is that both meteorites and surface volcanic rocks are consistent with similar origins in the deep interior of Mars but that the surface rocks come from a more oxygen-rich environment, probably caused by recycling of oxygen-rich materials into the interior. This result is surprising because while the meteorites are geologically young, around 180 million to 1.4 billion years old, the Spirit rover was analyzing a very old part of Mars, more than 3.7 billion years old.
In addition to evidence that Mars once had a sizable amount of surface water, in the form of rivers and lakes, this latest study demonstrates that Mars was once very much like Earth. In all likelihood, it would have been home to countless forms of bacteria, single-celled organisms, and possibly larger creatures as well. But being at the edge of our Sun’s habitable zone, it was unable to maintain the conditions for life to thrive.
Sad news, but encouraging when it comes to the prospect of making Mars able to sustain life again. And in the coming years and decades, that’s precisely what a number of space agencies, private companies and citizens want to do. And if these plans are to succeed long term, the planet will have to be converted into something that can independently support life.
In short, the colonization of Mars requires that the planet become something akin to its old self.
Yesterday, at approximately 5:38 am ET, China took yet another step towards establishing itself as a major player in space. It’s latest manned spacecraft, known as the Shenzhou 10, departed the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at the edge of the Gobi Desert, carrying three astronauts on what is planned to be a fifteen day mission that will see them rendezvousing with the prototype Tiangong-1 space lab in Earth’s orbit.
This is China’s fifth manned mission into space and will be its longest to date. The purpose of the mission is to educate young people about science, but for the Chinese state, it also presents an opportunity to flex its muscles as one of the new leaders in space exploration. Much of this has to do with the Tiangong-1, which is intended to serve as an experimental prototype for a much larger Chinese space station that will be launched in 2020.
In this respect, China is hoping to reach beyond its membership as on the three nations to send manned craft into space and join the United States and Russia by being able to send independently maintained space stations into orbit as well. If all goes well, China’s space station will join the likes of Mir and the ISS in Earth’s lower orbit. And with this kind of infrastructure in place, China will be well suited to play a role in future missions to Mars and the outer Solar System.
The craft carried two men, mission commander Nie Haisheng and Zhang Xiaoguang, and China’s second female astronaut, Wang Yaping. After rendezvousing with the space lab, the crew will spend a total of 12 days living in zero-gravity and conducting scientific experiments, the results of which will be shared with people on Earth.
Borrowing a page from astronaut Chris Hadfield and his many popular Youtube videos that cataloged his crew’s mission aboard the ISS, the Chinese crew plans to deliver a series of talks to students while aboard the Tiangong. This development of “space classrooms” marks the boldest step so far for the Chinese space program, turning what was a military-backed program into something that will impact on the lives of ordinary Chinese citizens.
Here too, China is following in the footsteps of NASA, which uses student outreach to inspire interest in space exploration and sustain support for its budgets. At a news conference on Monday, Wang said she was “eager to explore and feel the magic and splendor of space with young friends.” Her fellow astronaut Zhang told reporters they would conduct dozens of space science experiments and would “enjoy personalized space foods especially designed by our nutritionists.
On the day of the launch, President Xi Jinping was shown live on television at the launch center. State television showed Xi watching the launch, as well as Premier Li Keqiang who was at the space command center in Beijing. Prior to the launch, Xi delivered a statement to the astronauts, commending them on their efforts and wishing them luck on their journey:
You have made [the] Chinese people feel proud of ourselves. You have trained and prepared yourselves carefully and thoroughly, so I am confident in your completing the mission successfully. I wish you success and look forward to your triumphant return.
The space program is a source of enormous national pride for China, reflecting its rapid economic and technological progress and ambition to rank among the world’s leading nations. Little wonder then why the launch was met with such fanfare and overseen by both the President and Premier. The mission comes at the height of ten years of Chinese space exploration and if successful, will mark China as a true superpower in the space race of the 21st century.
And be sure to check out the video of the launch of the Shenzou 10:
It seems that a new field of study was threatening to emerge with the “discovery” of what appeared to be a Martian rat. The technical term for it is Martian mammology, the study of mammals that are native to Mars. Luckily, proponents of this field did not manage to overpower the good people at NASA, who remain dedicated to serious scientific research. And now, the Curiosity rover is moving on to study bigger and better things.
Yes, the appearance of this would-be rodent did generate a lot of buzz on the internet of late, with some UFO buffs claiming that it may be an indigenous Red Planet lifeform or an Earth rodent Curiosity carried to Mars as part of a secret experiment. But Curiosity scientists were relatively certain that the rat, which was spotted in a zoomed-in portion of a photo taken by the rover in September 2012, was just a rock.
Curiosity deputy project scientist Joy Crisp, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., told reporters on Wednesday, June 5, what they believed the curiously-shaped rock was the result of:
Clearly, it results from, you know, a lot of things like wind erosion and mechanical abrasion and breakdown chemical weathering of the rocks, as to why they get these weird shapes.
Under the circumstances, NASA does not feel the need to conduct any further studies. And the window to do so will last just a few more weeks, as the Curiosity rover is set to begin an epic drive that will take it far away from the petrified rodent. At the moment, the robot is gearing up for a year-long trek that will take it to the base of Mount Sharp, a mysterious mountain that rises 5.5 km (3.4 miles) into the Red Planet sky.
Curiously (no pun!), this is not the first time people have seen faced in the rock surfaces of Mars. Remember the elusive “Face on Mars”? Originally taken by the Viking 1 spacecraft in 1976, this low-resolution picture of the Cydonia region of Mars ignited the imaginations of people all over the world. For years, the face was mentioned in feature films, television series’, video games, comics, and even pop music.
Even after a series of high-resolution photos – taken some twenty years later by a succession of space craft – proved it to just be a simple rock formation, many people still insisted that the “face” was real and proved the existence of intelligent life on Mars. And such examples are hardly reserved to the Red Planet. Every year, there are stories of people witnessing “miracles” as divine visions appear to them in seemingly random objects, either of religious figures or personal heroes.
It’s whats known as pareidolia, a psychological phenomenon which refers to the human brain’s tendency to spot familiar things in random images. According to Crisp, this is not necessarily a bad thing. In truth, she claims NASA scientists get amused when this happens:
It’s fun in a way, too, in that it will attract a lot of the public to look at the images and learn a little bit about Mars by pulling them in this way.
So much like people seeing the Virgin Mary in a wall-stain, Mother Teresa in a cinnamon bun, or the face of Jesus and/or Elvis in their grilled cheese sandwich, the Mars Rat is likely to be with us for awhile yet. Perhaps he’ll go beyond the current internet meme and start a trend, with t-shirts and apparel for all. All he needs is a slogan: “Mars Rat Says ‘That’s My Cheese!'” …I’ll work on it 😉
The Opportunity Rover is at it again! A little over a week ago, it set the record for longest distance traveled by a vehicle on another planet. Well it seems that NASA’s longest-running rover wasn’t finished hogging the limelight just yet. Yes, after ten years of service on what was originally planned to be a three-month journey, Opportunity struck gold by discovering the strongest evidence to date for an environment favorable to ancient Martian biology.
It began just two weeks ago, when Opportunity conducted an analysis of a new rock target named “Esperance”. According to a statement released by NASA, the rover confirmed that the rock target was composed of a “clay that had been intensely altered by relatively neutral pH water – representing the most favorable conditions for biology that Opportunity has yet seen in the rock histories it has encountered.”
The process involved Opportunity using it still-functioning Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) to expose the interior of Esperance and then examine it with its microscopic camera and X-Ray spectrometer, both of which that are mounted at the end of her nearly 1 meter (3 foot) long robotic arm. Inside, it found a rock surface loaded with clay minerals that was clearly formed with the help of flowing liquid water.
The robot made the discovery at the conclusion of a 20 month long science expedition circling around a low ridge called “Cape York”, a region of great important to Mars scientists. Scott McLennan of Stony Brook University, a long-term planner for Opportunity’s science team, explained why:
What’s so special about Esperance is that there was enough water not only for reactions that produced clay minerals, but also enough to flush out ions set loose by those reactions, so that Opportunity can clearly see the alteration.
Esperance is unlike any rock previously investigated by Opportunity, containing far more aluminum and silica which is indicative of clay minerals and lower levels of calcium and iron. Most, but not all of the rocks inspected to date by Opportunity were formed in an environment of highly acidic water that is extremely harsh to most life forms. Clay minerals typically form in potentially drinkable, neutral water that is not extremely acidic or basic.
These findings amount to the discovery of an environment in which life could have thrived, which amounts to a scientific home run for the senior rover. As Prof. Steve Squyres of Cornell University, the mission’s principal scientific investigator, put it:
Water that moved through fractures during this rock’s history would have provided more favorable conditions for biology than any other wet environment recorded in rocks Opportunity has seen.
What’s next for Opportunity? Well, now that she’s finished at Cape York, Opportunity has set sail for her next crater destination at “Solander Point”, an area about 2.2 km (1.4 miles) south of the Cape. Eventually, she will continue further south to a rim segment named “Cape Tribulation” which holds huge caches of clay minerals. Along the way, there’s likely to be plenty more evidence of what Mars looked like many millions of years ago.
You know, with all this Opportunity-related news coming in, I’m beginning to wonder what Curiosity is up to. While it’s nice to see her partner-in-crime breaking records and turning up such important finds, I do wonder if Curiosity is likely to feel a little left out. At this rate, one might think a game of one-upmanship could break out between the rovers teams!
Not long ago, NASA announced its plan to to visit an asteroid in our Solar System and towing it closer to Earth. And with their funding secure, NASA announced earlier this month that they had taken some key steps towards making this happen. The first came on Wednesday, May 15th, when the spacecraft that will be performing the mission – the Origins-Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer, or Osiris-Rex – got the green light for development.
The second came shortly thereafter, when NASA announced where the robot craft would be headed – the asteroid now known as Bennu. Originally known as 1999 RQ36, the rock was renamed as part of a contest involving suggestions from thousands of schoolchildren. It was a nine-year-old named Michael Puzio who suggested the name, claiming that the the Touch-and-Go Sample Mechanism (Tagsam) arm and solar panels on Osiris-Rex resembled the neck and wings of Bennu, better known as the Phoenix.
NASA claims that Bennu could hold clues to the origin of the solar system, hence why samples will be brought back to determine their composition. The new spacecraft will rendezvous with Bennu in 2018 and begin collecting measurements and samples of surface material, and then return to Earth by 2023. Ultimately, the mission is part of NASA’s larger aim at capturing an asteroid and towing it back it to Earth so that the entire body can be studied.
Of course, there are larger plans at work here too. NASA’s truly long-term aims also involve improving asteroid defense, which includes capturing asteroids that are on a potential collision course with Earth and towing them off course. And then there’s the plan to put astronauts on an asteroid by the 2020’s, establishing a Moon outpost in the same decade, and on Mars by 2030. In the end, all roads converge on putting boots on soil that is not of Earth!
And be sure to check out the video simulation of the Osiris-Rex in action, courtesy of NASA:
It was only a matter of time, I guess. But we really should have known that with all the improvements being made in biometrics and biotechnology – giving patients and doctors the means to monitor their vitals, blood pressure, glucose levels and the like with tiny devices – and all the talk of how it looked like something out of science fiction that it wouldn’t be long before someone took it upon themselves to build a device right out of Star Trek.
It’s known as a the Scanadu Scout, a non-invasive medical device that is capable of measuring your vitals simply by being held up to your temple for a mere 10 seconds. The people responsible for its creation are a startup named Scanadu, a group of research and medtech enthusiasts who are based at the NASA Ames Research Center. For the past two years, they have been seeking to create the world’s first handheld medical scanner, and with the production of the Scout, they have their prototype!
All told, the device is able to track pulse transit time (to measure blood pressure), temperature, ECG, oximetry, heart rate, and the breathing rate of a patient or subject. A 10 second scan of a person’s temple yields data that has a 99% accuracy rate, which can then be transmitted automatically via Bluetooth to the user’s smartphone, tablet or mobile device.
The device has since been upgraded from its original version and runs at a rate of 32 bits (up from the original 8). And interestingly enough, the Scouts now runs on Micrium, the operation system that NASA uses for Mars sample analysis on the Curiosity rover. The upgrade became necessary when Scanadu co-founder Walter De Brouwer, decided to add an extra feature: the ability to remotely trigger new algorithms and plug in new sensors (like a spectrometer).
One would think that working with NASA is effecting his thinking. But as Brouwer points out, the more information the machine is capable of collecting, the better is will be at monitoring your health:
If we find new algorithms to find relationships between several readings, we can use more of the sensors than we would first activate. If you know a couple of the variables, you could statistically predict that something is going to happen. The more data we have, the more we can also predict, because we’re using data mining at the same time as statistics.
One of the Scout’s cornerstone algorithms, for example, allows it to read blood pressure without the inflating cuff that we’ve all come to know and find so uncomfortable. In the future, Scanadu could discover an algorithm that connects, age, weight, blood pressure, and heart rate with some other variable, and then be able to make recommendations.
Everyone who pre-orders a Scout has their data sent to a cloud service, where Scanadu will collect it in a big file for the FDA. Anyone who opts-in will also gain access to the data of other users who have also elected to share their vitals. Brouwer explains that this is part of the products early mission to test the parameters of information sharing and cloud-medical computing:
It’s going to be a consumer product in the future, but right now we are positioning it as a research tool so that it can be used to finalize the design and collect data to eventually gain regulatory approval. In the end, you have to prove how people are going to use the device, how many times a day, and how they are going to react to the information.
In the future, De Brouwer imagines this kind of shared information could be used for population scanning, kind of like Google Flu Trends does, except with data being provided directly from individuals. The focus will also be much more local, with people using the Scout’s stats to able to see if their child, who suddenly has flu symptoms, is alone of ir other kids at their school are also sick. Pandemics and the outbreaks of fatal diseases could also be tracked in the same way and people forewarned.
Naturally, this raises some additional questions. With it now possible to share and communicate medical information so easily between devices, from people to their doctors, and stored within databases of varying accessibility, there is the ongoing issue of privacy. If in fact medical information can be actively shared in real-time or with the touch of a button, how hard will it be for third parties to gain access to them?
The upsides are clear: a society where health information is easily accessible is likely to avoid outbreaks of infectious disease and be able to contain pandemics with greater ease. But on the flip side, hackers are likely to find ways to access and abuse this information, since it will be in a public place where people can get at it. And naturally, there are plenty of people who will feel squeamish or downright terrified about the FDA having access to up-to-the-moment medical info on them.
It’s the age of cloud computing, wireless communications, and information sharing my friends. And much as people feel guarded about their personal information now, this is likely to take on extra dimensions when their personal medical info is added to the mix. Not a simple or comfortable subject.
But while I’ve still got you’re here, no doubt contemplating the future of medicine, take a look at this video of the Scanadu Scout in action:
Looking at my site, I’ve come to notice that news concerning the Red Planet has been a bit sparse of late. Lucky for me, I had several interesting stories sitting in my inbox which were just waiting to be read, and more than a few had to do with Earth’s closest neighbor. And as we are all no doubt aware, there are quite a few of us here on Earth that believe that she is the future of planetary exploration and colonization.
But would it surprise you to know that there are plans to visit Mars that go beyond NASA’s projected mission of 2030, which will involve sending live astronauts for the first time? Take the Mars One Project as an example. Conceived by Dutch entrepreneur Bas Landorp, this project involves using existing technology and private sponsorship to fund a one-way trip to Mars and establish the first permanent settlement there by 2023, thus putting them ahead of NASA’s plans to send explorers there by almost a decade.
Announced back in January, the project put out an open call for volunteers, and some 80,000 people have applied thus far. Thirty-five of those applicants hail from my own country (Canada), with the vast majority of them being men who are still in their 20’s. Those who apply are apparently asked some rather grueling and personal questions designed to test their aptitude and beliefs, which includes the meaning of life itself. I’m guessing more than one person answered “space exploration”!
The first things to be sent will be the modules themselves, followed shortly thereafter by the first of six teams, with each team of four arriving every two years. In time, the home base would consist of habitation modules with oxygen, water and provisions, but would expand to include solar panels. Landorp has also indicated that primary funding will come from an as-yet-unspecified “global media event” that will feature the astronauts and their preparation.
In short, it’s like a reality TV event featuring the first people who will make the seven month trip.
But for those who don’t feel like making the trip, or who would like to send something to Mars other than themselves, there’s also NASA’s MAVEN mission. As part of the “Going to Mars” campaign that is being managed by the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (CU/LASP), the MAVEN mission is a chance for the general public to send their name and a short poem to the Red Planet via NASA’s latest Mars satellite.
MAVEN – which stands for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN – is due to be launched in November from the Florida Space Coast. Attached to the front of the orbiter will be a DVD featuring the names of everyone who applies to take part in the campaign. In addition, of those poems submitted (which is to be written in the form of a haiku), three will be selected for the mission as well.
Voting will be done by the public online, and over 1 million people have already submitted their names. The rules for the contest can be found on the mission website here. Children are allowed to participate, but must do so through a participant of 18 years of age or older, preferably a parent or guardian. Activity opened at the beginning of the month and ends July 1st, so get your names of poems in soon!
Since the campaign and contest are open to people of all ages, walks of life, and is indiscriminate of education or qualification, it’s a pretty good way for the public to participate in the ongoing exploration of space and our Red planetary neighbor. And when considered alongside the many and increasing private efforts to send people to Mars, it says about the increasingly democratic nature of space exploration.
With the Curiosity Rover blazing a trail across Mars to find evidence of what the planet once looked like, people often forget about it’s venerable predecessor – the Opportunity Rover. Luckily, Opportunity recently broke a record that put it back in the public eye and into the history books. After nine years into what was initially meant to be a 90 day mission, Opportunity smashed yet another space milestone this week by establishing a new distance driving record.
On Thursday, May 16, the Opportunity rover drove another 80 meters (263 feet) on the Martian surface, bringing her total odometry since landing on the 24th of January, 2004 to 35.760 kilometers (22.220 miles). This effectively put her ahead of the 40 year old driving record set by the Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt back in December of 1972.
On that mission, Cernan and Schmitt performed America’s final lunar landing mission and drove their Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV-3) a total of 35.744 kilometers (22.210 miles) over the course of three days on the moon’s surface at the Taurus-Littrow lunar valley. And interestingly enough, Cernan was a very good sport about his record being broken. In a statement made at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md, he said:
The record we established with a roving vehicle was made to be broken, and I’m excited and proud to be able to pass the torch to Opportunity.
And since Opportunity still has plenty of juice left, it is now eying the ‘Solar System World Record’ for driving distance on another world, a record that is currently held by the Soviet Union’s remote-controlled Lunokhod 2 rover. In 1973, Lunokhod 2 traveled 37 kilometers (23 miles) on the surface of Earth’s nearest neighbor. With Opportunity setting course for her next crater rim destination, named “Solander Point”, she is likely to overtake Lunokhod 2’s record in short order!
Thereafter, Opportunity will rack up ever more distance as the rover continues driving further south to a spot called “Cape Tribulation”. This point is believed to hold caches of clay minerals that formed eons ego when liquid water flowed across this region of the Red Planet. In so doing, Opportunity will not only establish a new record that will last for years to come, it will also be obtaining data that will assist in Curiosity’s own efforts to determine what life was like on Mars in the past.
Far greater than this record-breaking news is the fact that Opportunity has lasted so far beyond her design lifetime, 37 times longer in fact than her initial 3 month “warranty”.
And be sure to check out the full list of record holders for “out-of-this-world” driving, below:
In this latest video update from the Mars Science Laboratory team, Ashwin Vasavada, the mission’s Deputy Project Scientist, discusses the recent findings by the Curiosity Rover. As always, these include ongoing studies of Mars atmosphere, in addition to soil and rock analysis, to determine what the Martian landscape may have looked like millions of years ago.
And in its latest research breakthrough, the rover has determined that Mars doesn’t have the same atmosphere it used to. Relying on its microwave oven-sized Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument, the rover analyzed a sample of Martian air early in April, and the results that came back provided the most precise measurements ever made of in the Martian atmosphere.
What it noticed in particular was the isotopes of Argon, a basic element that is present in Earth’s atmosphere, Jupiter’s and even the Sun. In Mars case, the mix of light and heavy Argon – two different isotopes of the element – is heavier than in all the other cases. What this suggests is that the Martian atmosphere has thinned over the course of the past few million years.
This data conclusively confirms another long-held suspicion by scientists, that Mars did indeed have an atmosphere capable of supporting life. Alongside the voluminous evidence obtained by Curiosity for the existence of water, we now know that Mars may have supported life at one time, and that it did not always have the arid, cold climate it now does. More good news for those looking to build a case for settling there one day…
Check out the video below to hear Ashwin Vasavada speak about these latest findings, including the Solar Conjunction which kept them from communicating with the Rover until today. Now that the conjunction has ended, we can expect plenty more updates and interesting finds from the rover. Who knows? Maybe even some evidence about the existence of a Martian civilization.
Don’t be looking at me like that! It could happen…
NASA’s Opportunity Rover is a special kind of vehicle. Not only did it set the record for longest distance driven on another world and discover the most compelling evidence for life on Mars thus far, it also surpassed its 90 day mission by a grand total of 3560 days, as of this past July 7th. In other words, the Opportunity Rover just celebrated its tenth anniversary, and people all over the world are marking the occasion by acknowledging the rover’s many contributions.
This consisted of a rock that proves that Martian water was once drinkable, which in turn suggests strongly that life could once have thrived there. On top of that, it captured some amazing photos, long before Curiosity was sending back its hefty batch of panoramas. But of course, Opportunity had its share of trials and tribulations as well.
And yet, all of that seems worth it now. After being eclipsed by its larger, more recent arrival – the Curiosity Rover – Opportunity has battled back with its incredible longevity. Who’s to say how much longer the little rover that could will remain in operation? And who’s to say what it will uncover. At this rate, its doesn’t seem unlikely that it will beat its cousin to the punch of finding the Holy Grail – organic particles on Mars!
Stories by Williams 