This week in science: No more blues for a Red Planet

post from Daily Kos on 14 April 2012 09:00:05 AM. © Daily Kos

The Utopian Plain on Mars as seen by the Viking 2 lander in 1976. Scientists believes this image represents the true colors of the aptly name Red Planet. Credit 1976 NASA/JPL

If recent cuts to planetary science weren't drawing blood before, they are now. Because this week a group of scientists reexamined data from the 1976 Viking Landers and announced we had indeed found strong evidence of microbial life on Mars at that time:

One of the three experiments, which were known as the ?Labeled Release? experiment, hinted to the presence of life on Mars, while the others did not. A mathematical analysis of the samples found that salts in the soil on Mars ?threw off? initial estimates, and that the soil samples show strong evidence of microbial life. The new analysis looked for ?complexity? in the samples, which the scientists claimed to have found.
?This suggests a robust biological response,? the researchers wrote in the International Journal of Aeronautic and Space Sciences (PDF). ?These analyses support the interpretation that the Viking LR experiment did detect extant microbial life on Mars.?

This is an extraordinary claim, as such it will require extraordinary evidence (We miss you Carl). Ergo, all eyes are now on NASA's Mars programs and especially the Mars Science Laboratory already en route to the red planet with the flagship rover, Curiousity, on board. ETA 6 Aug 2012. But Curiousity does not have either of the two items that might solve this issue once and for all: a high power microscope or return sample capability.

We humans aren't the only ones who pick up habits, good or bad, when everyone else is doing it. Our closest evolutionary cousins the cimpanzee's appear to do the same thing, probably for the same reasons. And baboons can distinguish lots of word (But they still won't read blogs)
So, freaking, cool: Canada rolls out a glow-in-the-dark, dino-skeleton, coin, and it's real money, not some fake "collectors edition".
The ancient mariner's star Fomalhaut and its retinue of millions of planet forming comets were resolved into dusty brilliance this week by the ESA:
Fomalhaut is a young star, just a few hundred million years old, and twice as massive as the Sun. Its dust belt was discovered in the 1980s by the IRAS satellite, but Herschel?s new images of the belt show it in much more detail at far-infrared wavelengths than ever before.
I'm sorry, I just can't let this go: two missions that would follow-up on any Martian leads generated by Curiosity are jointly funded by NASA and the European Space Agency, and they could get the ax. Guess how much they cost us?
In other words, the amount of money being cut from Mars exploration is equal to what we were spending on the War on Terror in just 15 hours. ... You might want to read that again. For the cost of less than a single day on the War on Terror, we could have a robust and far-reaching program to explore Mars, look for signs of life on another planet ...
If you want those exciting missions and others, you'd better let your elected representative know. Because, if proposed cuts go through, we will be postponing the projects that could settle the most important question in science, indeed for our very species, by decades.