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NASA solves the mystery rock
hevach
Member Posts: 2,777 Arc User
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-051
Despite being sued for not studying it, NASA's kept Curiosity at the mystery rock (AKA Pinnacle Island, AKA jelly doughnut) trying to figure out where it came from for about a month.
And it's even more boring than they thought.
It wasn't ejecta from a meteorite, it wasn't even dug up out of the ground by Curiosity's wheel treads, it just broke in half when they ran over it.
There's a lesson the media and public should learn here (and every time NASA is excited about something): The people on these programs are the biggest nerds in the universe and they get giddy talking about the sulfur content of rocks. Just because they get excited, people think it must be something that will excite everyone else.
On the other hand, it is saying something that "crushed by a half ton atomic powered truck with lasers" is the boring answer to them.
Despite being sued for not studying it, NASA's kept Curiosity at the mystery rock (AKA Pinnacle Island, AKA jelly doughnut) trying to figure out where it came from for about a month.
And it's even more boring than they thought.
"Once we moved Opportunity a short distance, after inspecting Pinnacle Island, we could see directly uphill an overturned rock that has the same unusual appearance," said Opportunity Deputy Principal Investigator Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis. "We drove over it. We can see the track. That's where Pinnacle Island came from."
It wasn't ejecta from a meteorite, it wasn't even dug up out of the ground by Curiosity's wheel treads, it just broke in half when they ran over it.
There's a lesson the media and public should learn here (and every time NASA is excited about something): The people on these programs are the biggest nerds in the universe and they get giddy talking about the sulfur content of rocks. Just because they get excited, people think it must be something that will excite everyone else.
On the other hand, it is saying something that "crushed by a half ton atomic powered truck with lasers" is the boring answer to them.
Post edited by hevach on
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*Groan*
NASA took that idiot seriously?
*Groan*
Trials of Blood and Fire
Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
In Cold Blood
An atomic-powered laser robot science truck from the past ran it over!
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
It's always Not Aliens.
-Leonard Nimoy, RIP
My character Tsin'xing
Not on the History channel.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
I watch a lot of NASA shows and all of the scientists get excited because they found out how windy it is on Jupiter. Can you imagine what they'd do if they saw Jupiter form a blue spot on one of its clouds? Your right, very nerdy indeed.
What arrogance? There's no arrogance in this, only stupidity in the public and willful if not intentional misrepresentation by the media.
NASA never claimed anything interesting about Pinnacle Island except its mineral content, which is significant in and of itself because it meant the rock had undergone a water-based process that has not been observed in this part of Mars before, meaning it was either not a local rock (cool but not highly interesting - due to its proximity to the busier edge of the asteroid belt Mars gets hit every few weeks by something large enough to leave a crater visible from orbit), or suggests Mars may have been more dynamic than predicted.
There was literal lost **** when a white spot turned red a few years ago, both being really common colors in Jupiter's clouds, but no storm had ever been observed to change from white to red (before that one did change from red to white, though, to equal loss of ****).
Things like this are their superbowl. Think of that overexcitable uncle every family seems to have who screams "N-dam-u-kong Suuuuuuuuuuh" every time the Lions make a play on Thanksgiving and even the other football fans can't really understand why he's so worked up. This is what NASA does when they see a reddish brown rock in a field mostly full of brownish red rocks. The rock could revolutionize understanding of those particular rocks, but unless you're already really, really into brownish red rocks you won't understand why it's exciting.
My character Tsin'xing
all these conditional words in your quote here is all the proof your looking for... what might be without proof, then overplay it to the media as if it was god herself. and then when it comes back and bites em in the [reacted], hard. thats arrogance, ive seen it time and time again the past decade.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
I also didn't do what you said, one of the conditional words in there was applied directly to the public and the other was implied to be towards you. Unless you mean the parts about questions that Curiosity was unable to answer, which are there because THAT'S HOW SCIENCE WORKS when you're not a child making baking soda volcanoes.
The failure is not on science if the public expects a geological and chemical mystery to have answers that are anything except geological and chemical.
Which then led to nutters insisting that not only was the rock evidence of life, but of advanced life forms, which NASA was covering up because -- well, that part never seemed very clear, quite frankly.
Then NASA came back with, "We found out what was up with the rock. We still aren't sure why it's a different shade of red, which we think is really cool." If you're a Martian geology (areology?) freak, it's doubtless fascinating news. And had the reporters not felt it necessary to try to make us all as excited as those particular scientists, this would probably have gotten as much notice as when Curiosity first tried out its laser drill (which also excited the scientists). Hardly NASA's fault, though.