If you’ve continued to follow the NASA Curiosity mission to Mars (and given all that’s happened in the
world over the past few months, you’re forgiven if not)— your ears might have
perked up in late November amid rumblings of an “Earth-shaking”
discovery. The possibilities were endless —water? Biological evidence? Little
green men? Soon enough, we found out, though, that the answer was. . . nothing.
Or more accurately, soil. The rover had been testing soil with its Sample
Analysis at Mars tool, and had come up with. . . nothing. Or had it?
After all, this wasn’t really just any soil. It was Martian
soil. The whole point of the mission is discovery, experimentation, all borne
out of, well, curiosity. Maybe there will be such a breakthrough, and maybe
not. Regardless of the outcome, there’s going to be a whole lot of that same
“nothing” before we do reach that “something.” Rather than feeling
disappointed, perhaps amazement that this process is occurring at all is more
accurate. And not only is it occurring, but we’re finding out about it, step by
step, through monitoring and analysis equipment, data
loggers, and communication via telemetry.
The possibilities really are endless.
