Hitting Pay Dirt on Mars

Jack Fitzgibbons                                                                                           Earth Science Current Event

            I read an article from the New York Times science section called Hitting Pay Dirt on Mars. This article was about how the space rover Curiosity landed on Mars and discovered water in the very first rock it sampled. This discovery was completely by accident. The rock looked bleak and ordinary, so the scientists decided to use it as a sample rock for the rover to test. It turned out the rock was very Earth-like, or terrestrial. This was not the only surprising discovery. Curiosity also spent weeks analyzing a pile of dust and dirt. This pile of dirt and dust contained water too. When that dust and dirt was heated, it released water vapor. One cubic foot of heated soil for Mars would produce a couple pints of water. But all this isn’t what intrigued scientists the most. This water that was contained in the soil could be a drinking source for Martian microbes, and a water resource for future Mars astronauts. But complicating future human presence on Mars was Curiosity’s discovery of chemicals called perchlorates. Perchlorates can cause thyroid problems.

            Another focus of the article was the finding of the volcanic rock called Jack M, named after Jacob R. Matijevic. It seemed to be a piece of basalt, which is common on the surface of Mars. The rock was described as “featureless” and “not expected to be anything interesting”. But when the data that came back, proved it was very interesting. It had a mix of elements that reminded scientists of terrestrial rocks. The chunk of rock was alkaline, and is very similar to the uncommon kind of rock, mugearite. This is found on the volcanic parts of Hawaii. Mugearite is an extremely rare rock on Earth, less than one percent of Earth’s rocks are mugearite. On Earth, the magma that cools and then hardens into alkaline rocks, is created from rock deep in the mantle, in the presence of water, being melted. Because Jake M is believed to be one of those kinds of alkaline rocks, we learn that the history of Mars could be very similar to that of Earth’s, and considerably more interesting.

            This article is not only important to the study of Mars, but also current and future society.  The one major connection to society that stood out the most for me was the discovery of water. This is huge because if we ever have the need to go to Mars, there is a drinking resource there. With an increasingly growing number of countries getting their hands on nuclear weapons, if a nuclear war started Mars could be where we evacuate to. The finding of water could also mean there is life on Mars…which could lead to abductions. Not really but it could mean that there are living microbes on Mars. This could also be very bad for the U.S. money wise. If scientists start spending too much on Mars, or other planets, exploration we will dig ourselves deeper into debt.

            This article was was well written and packed with very good information, but could have had a better flow and been more interesting. Kenneth Chang did an extremely good job of explaining the facts about Martian soil and the possibility of life. Although it had very good facts, it could have better information to pull in the reader. Although I personally found the article quite interesting, others would have been bored by it quickly. The article seemed like it was copied straight from an outline, it was just a bunch of facts thrown together, it had no true flow. Overall I think it was a very strong and educational article

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/01/science/space/hitting-pay-dirt-on-mars.html?_r=0