IT’S all eyes on the skies next week as the most promising laboratory of recent years finally gets commissioned. This particular installation has it all: state-of-the-art instruments, a clearly defined task in a field that is still substantially unstudied, and the backing of some of the world’s leading scientists and engineers. All that, and wheels.
Next Monday, all being well, the latest and best of the Mars exploration rovers should touch down near the base of Mount Sharp at a place called Gale Crater, chosen because it is felt to be the most likely place on Mars to yield evidence of biology.
The Mars Science Laboratory, to give the device its Sunday name, is many times larger than the previous generations of Mars rovers which have provided so much useful information about the planet. The first mobile lander, 1997’s Sojourner, was about the size of a small suitcase and travelled just 100m in total. In 2003 the Mars Exploration Rovers – Spirit and Opportunity – began their spectacularly successful missions which have proved that the planet has a wet past.
The big question, of course, is whether there has ever been life on Mars, and it is a source of some frustration that Spirit and Opportunity were not equipped with a mass spectrometer, which might have answered this once and for all. The only such instrument ever sent to Mars was on Beagle 2, the ill-fated UK/European mission which failed to phone home at Christmas 2003.
The rover landing on Monday dwarfs the others sent to Mars, necessitating a rather unlikely-sounding landing mechanism. Too big for the airbag cushion method used for earlier rovers, it will instead be lowered to the ground from a hovering rocket-powered crane.
Sending spacecraft to Mars is always risky, so let’s hope this new landing technique works so the rover, more popularly known as Curiosity, can start its mission. What a pity, though, that the mission is still a geological one – no mass spec, and therefore no hunt for biology, and therefore still no attempt to tackle the one question that makes it worthwhile sending these machines into space. The stated science mission is to determine ‘past habitability’, to seek the isotopes of carbon that might
I can’t help feeling that Nasa has lost the plot here. The landing site is selected for its biological potential, yet the rover could be yomping through dunes of dessicated bacteria and hardly know it. The only way this mission will answer The Big Question is if it happens to photograph a fossil.
Curiosity, in other words, is a lost opportunity.
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Russ Swan
editor, LabHomepage.com
This week’s top stories: 2 August 2012
1. Chemical identification at nanometre scale
ELECTRON microscopy and scanning probe microscopy offer the scientific researcher powerful high-resolution imaging at the nanometre scale, but are poor at…
http://labhomepage.com/2433/spectroscopy/chemical-identification-at-nanometre-scale/
2. X-ray diffractometer optimised for structural biology
DESIGNED to meet the needs of the modern macromolecular crystallography laboratory, Agilent says its new GV1000 X-ray diffractometer is a revolutionary new instrument for…
http://labhomepage.com/2430/crystallisation/x-ray-diffractometer-optimised-for-structural-biology/
3. Software processes multiple genotypes in single run
A NEW Windows-compatible program enables clinical research labs to process up to six different genotype chemistries or size standards in a single analysis…
http://labhomepage.com/2439/software/software-processes-multiple-genotypes-in-single-run/
4. Gene cloning made safer and more sensitive
AN ALTERNATIVE to ethidium bromide which is said to be more flexible in use as well as being safe and sensitive has been introduced by…
http://labhomepage.com/2456/electrophoresis/gene-cloning-made-safer-and-more-sensitive/
5. Maintaining charpy impact specimens at precise temperature
A LOW temperature bath that provides metallurgists and testing laboratories with precise temperature control when cooling specimens for impact testing has…
6. Site will ‘revolutionise’ laboratory outsourcing
A NEW initiative to simplify and speed up the process of laboratory outsourcing promises to take the stress out of tendering. The Network Scientific Directory is an online matchmaking…
http://labhomepage.com/2418/contract-laboratory/site-will-revolutionise-laboratory-outsourcing/
7. Pleated membranes make for convenient filtration
STERILE mixed cellulose esters (MCE) membranes offer the same quality and reliability as individually wrapped membranes, says Cole-Parmer, with the added benefits of…
http://labhomepage.com/2443/filtration/pleated-membranes-make-for-convenient-filtration/
8. Better labelling for personalised medicine firm
PERSONALISED medicine specialist Lab21 has begun using a new labelling system from Episys to create labels for its diagnostic test kits. The Episys Ultimate Platinum…
http://labhomepage.com/2460/labelling/better-labelling-for-personalised-medicine-firm/
9. Multiply the water supplies in the fume cupboard
A COMMON practice when multiple condensers are deployed in laboratory fume cupboards is to daisy-chain the devices in series. This can be effective, but means that…
http://labhomepage.com/2450/refrigeration/multiply-the-water-supplies-in-the-fume-cupboard/
10. Protocol shows way to improved sulphur determination
A PROPRIETARY inductive coupled plasma – optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) sample preparation protocol allowing regular, reproducible detection of sulphur at trace…
http://labhomepage.com/2464/spectroscopy/protocol-shows-way-to-improved-sulphur-determination/