
JPL director: Curiosity may have found organic, not biological molecules - pitiburi
http://www.lagazzettadelmezzogiorno.it/notizia.php?IDNotizia=572690&IDCategoria=2694
======
anigbrowl
Organic in this context means carbon-bearing - a necessity for life (as we
know it), but not direct evidence of it. Encouraging, though!

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_chemistry>

~~~
macu
taking another of many possible perspectives, here is a strong case for hoping
that we don't find life on Mars:
<http://www.nickbostrom.com/extraterrestrial.pdf>

~~~
rpm4321
Bit of a tangent, but does anyone know of a service where I can copy in a pdf
url and get a rough approximation of the content as plain text html?

~~~
lloeki
Not a URL but arguably more useful:

    
    
        $ curl http://www.nickbostrom.com/extraterrestrial.pdf | pdftotext - -
    

Don't forget the two dashes, as it doesn't default to reading stdin, and
doesn't default to writing to stdout when instructed to read from stdin.

Also, _pdftotext_ is part of _poppler_ in Arch and _poppler-utils_ in Debian.

~~~
rpm4321
Embarrassingly enough, I'm a Python dev on Win7 - now you know why I'm so
paranoid. :)

Thanks anyway, though.

~~~
nfg
The instructions work fine with cygwin on windows btw, pdftotext is in the
poppler package.

------
pitiburi
Just to clarify. This guy -> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Elachi> in
a conference in Rome today said that what they found in Mars was organic
molecules. He said it was a "perhaps" because they still have to check the
data. He also said that Curiosity can not say if an organic molecule is
biological or not, so all they can say is that there are organic molecules.
Again, perhaps, until the data checking ends and full data is presented.

All this reported by ANSA.

PD: it was in a conference in La Sapienza, in Rome, hardly a remote and/or
obscure university/place.

~~~
gus_massa
Without more details this is not a very interesting new. Methane is an organic
molecule and we have found it _everywhere_ in space:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane#Extraterrestrial_methan...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane#Extraterrestrial_methane)

~~~
pitiburi
In the soil. They found organic molecules in the soil. So no methane but
something solid I guess. And remember, they couldn't find methane yet on mars,
Curiosity results were negative. [http://www.nature.com/news/nasa-rover-yet-
to-find-methane-on...](http://www.nature.com/news/nasa-rover-yet-to-find-
methane-on-mars-1.11730)

~~~
hughw
It could be methane molecules bound to sand particles. It would be surprising
not to find methane on a planet in our solar system.

------
tokenadult
This news was anticipated by an article in The Guardian as the speculation was
building up, "Whatever the Curiosity rover has found, it's not evidence of
life on Mars."

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/across-the-
universe/2012/n...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/across-the-
universe/2012/nov/23/curiosity-rover-life-mars)

The author's evidence for that bold headline claim was earlier reporting on
the issue as the speculation built up.

"Whatever Curiosity has found, it is not evidence for life on Mars. It can't
be. Curiosity is not designed to look for life. Grotzinger has stated this
himself. In a Nasa video about the mission, he says, 'Curiosity is not a life
detection mission. We're not actually looking for life; we don't have the
ability to detect life if it was there.'

"Following up the internet speculation, Jeffrey Kluger of Time talked to
Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory spokesperson Guy Webster and was told, 'It
won't be earthshaking, but it will be interesting.'"

Organic molecules (molecules containing carbon) are commonplace in many
lifeless places around the Solar system, so this is hardly surprising. It is
moderately interesting, but certainly not earthshaking, as previously
reported.

AFTER EDIT: Replying to the first reply kindly posted to my comment,

 _I'm not arguing whether Curiosity has found evidence for life on Mars or not
but I would like to point out a logical fallacy in the cited argument; in
particular, the statement "device X wasn't designed to do Y" does not imply
"device X can't do Y"._

I take the statement made by the NASA planners at face value for a simple
reason. While the Curiosity rover, with its cameras, would surely be able to
detect Martian megafauna, if there were such a thing, for example a Martian
elephant, I trust the statement that Curiosity is incapable of providing
unambiguous evidence of microorganisms on Mars. I cited the Guardian article
in my first posting of this comment. The issue of detecting life, or not, was
surely discussed by the NASA mission planners, who included astute
exobiologists. The mission profile of Curiosity does not include a task of
detecting life on Mars, and the instruments on Curiosity are not reliable for
distinguishing organic molecules made by living microorganisms from organic
molecules made by purely physical processes. Whatever Curiosity detects with
its molecular analysis instruments, it cannot be taken as evidence for life on
Mars. That is the statement of the article, based on interviews with people
knowledgeable about the planning of the mission, and that is a credible
statement, given the amount of thought the mission planners must have devoted
to this issue.

~~~
otakucode
They detected organic molecules on Mars decades ago, and we are now seeing
proof that those who refused to accept the evidence were wrong. I wish I
recalled the name of the scientist that designed the test done in the late
80s. He was far more polite and gracious than he should have been. He detected
signs that were EXACTLY what they went in looking for in the first place, no
one else even proposed an alternative explanation, they just decided to ignore
it with pigheaded stubbornness. I hope news agencies dig up the man (I believe
he is still alive, he is mentioned in the fairly recent book '13 Things That
Don't Make Sense') and they have some of his contemporaries apologizing for
going with their hearts instead of their brains.

~~~
blueprint
It's not an isolated report.

The USSR discovered water on the moon about 40 years ago in 1976 -
[http://www.technologyreview.com/view/428030/soviet-moon-
land...](http://www.technologyreview.com/view/428030/soviet-moon-lander-
discovered-water-on-the-moon-in-1976/) They also had landers on Venus in the
70s <http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/venera.html> Why did NASA announce
in 2009 as if it's unexpected and novel that there's water on the moon?
[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/main/prelim_water_r...](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/main/prelim_water_results.html)

------
phreeza
Organic molecules on mars are nothing new. Methane had been shown in very low
concentrations using remote sensing (spectral) methods, but had not been
detected directly on Mars so far by Curiosity. This might mean that it has now
detected methane after all.

The reason why methane would be exciting is that it is broken down by UV
radiation, so there must be some persistent source of it on the planet for a
sustained presence.

~~~
rpm4321
Apparently, it's quite uncertain how much (if any) current volcanic activity
there is, which would make organisms a possible source:

[http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-amp-
space/article/20...](http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-amp-
space/article/2009-01/methane-may-point-life-mars)

[http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-09/mars-
methane-c...](http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-09/mars-methane-
changes-seasons-and-scientists-wonder-why)

------
rpm4321
Does anyone know how this jives with Slate and The Atlantic reporting
yesterday that the whole thing was a big misunderstanding and that no big
discovery had been made?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4841107>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4840905>

Edit: Here are similar stories from PC Magazine and Mashable, which was
apparently the original source of all of these articles:

[http://mashable.com/2012/11/27/curiosity-rover-discovery-
npr...](http://mashable.com/2012/11/27/curiosity-rover-discovery-npr/)

<http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2412567,00.asp>

~~~
Tloewald
[http://www.beedictionary.com/common-
errors/gibe_vs_jibe_vs_j...](http://www.beedictionary.com/common-
errors/gibe_vs_jibe_vs_jive)

Sorry for the pedantry.

~~~
rpm4321
No problem, I love pedantry - except when I'm at the business end of it. :)

Interestingly enough:

"how does this _jive_ with" - About 257,000 results

"how does this _jibe_ with" - About 234,000 results

"how does this _gibe_ with" - About 6,490 results

------
pitiburi
Please keep in mind that Curiosity has not the capability to recognize
biological molecules, only organic ones. That means that even if it finds
current life, it will only be able to recognize the presence of organic
compounds. That is why the "organic, not biological"; it may well be
biological, but Curiosity cannot know.

~~~
zyb09
Is this some kind of job security on NASA's part? The unspoken goal of these
mars missions has always been to find life, so why not make sure the rover has
every possible piece of equipment to do so. Unless they want to send another
one. They certainly have good arguments for the pitch now.

~~~
InclinedPlane
If only it were that easy. Curiosity already is a $2.5 billion roving science
lab, quite literally. However, it's necessary to have a guiding principle for
what you set out to investigate when you decide what equipment to bring to
Mars, and in the case of Curiosity that principle has been mineralogy and
chemical composition. Overwhelmingly, Curiosity's instruments are designed to
be able to determine the mineral makeup of rocks and the chemical makeup of
samples. This gives it the possibility of discovering hints of life if it gets
lucky, but overall it's not very good at that role.

Partly this is because we still need to know about the mineralogy of Mars,
there is a ton we don't know. Improving on that knowledge will mean that we
are all that much more able to target the regions of Mars that are more likely
to harbor or have harbored life. And then we can send a "life detection" class
mission.

However, such missions aren't easy. Consider a few of the challenges. In order
to determine the composition of a rock you really don't care about the extreme
minority constituents of that rock. If you can figure out what the elemental
composition of the rock is within, say, 1% that can be a good day. However, if
you want to determine whether or not a sample of dirt contains living or
formerly living microbes then you are talking about a teeny, tiny fraction of
a fraction of a percent of the material. Which means that you don't just need
to break down the material into its major parts, you need to figure out how to
focus in your studies to just that small bit of biological material. Which
could mean extremely high magnification microscopes, for example, though that
has a throughput problem. Or it could mean making use of various experiments
to prove the existence of running metabolic activities within living
organisms, such as using radiologically tagged nutrients, for example. But
these sorts of things are pretty much a crap-shoot, and wouldn't help if the
biological samples are no longer living.

Also, a NASA life detection mission requires much higher standards of clean-
room assembly and pre-launch sterilization, which add expense and complication
to the mission.

~~~
debacle
If life does indeed exist on Mars, how likely is it that we could detect the
difference between clean room contamination and actual life?

~~~
InclinedPlane
This is the sort of question that keeps NASA scientists up at nights. It's a
fundamentally tough problem to tackle, especially with just a rover full of
instruments and experiments. You can try to design the experiment such that
you can show that it's the presence of external samples which show signs of
biological activity and not the parts of the machinery itself (e.g. comparing
results with and without an external sample present, comparing different
samples, etc.) but even that isn't foolproof.

Keep in mind that for unmanned "life detection" missions a spacecraft would
not just be constructed in a clean-room but all of its components (as well as
the whole vehicle) would be extensively sterilized (at 112 deg. C for about 30
hours, for example). Additionally, the vehicle would be extensively swabbed
throughout assembly to search for any amount of biological contamination.

However, more than likely the focus will not be on an unmanned life detection
mission but rather on a sample return mission (which would be optimized to try
to find samples containing life) or on a manned mission (which would also
likely entail sample return). In either case there would be a considerable
amount of research resources available to study any samples of Martian life,
should it be found, and bring to bear instruments or tests which would
unambiguously show it to be of a different origin to Earth life.

------
micahgoulart
Actually it's been confirmed to be just a big misunderstanding. The NASA
director was talking about the whole mission as being "one for the history
books". More details here:
[http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/11/27/nasa_mars_...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/11/27/nasa_mars_discovery_misunderstanding_mission_leader_excited_about_entire.html)

------
fredley
Can someone please explain the difference between an organic molecule and a
biological molecule?

~~~
jaggederest
Gasoline is an organic molecule. (Quoth wikipedia: An organic compound is any
member of a large class of gaseous, liquid, or solid chemical compounds whose
molecules contain carbon.)

DNA is a biological molecule - a molecule used more or less exclusively in
biology and not spontaneously occurring outside the context of life.

~~~
simonh
That's all true, but gasoline is actually a biological derivative as it's
formed from the remains of living things. So your two examples actually both
occur within the context of life.

We do know that organic molecules with non-biological origins do exist on
other planets and even on asteroids. Titan has large quantities of organic
compounds on it's surface that have non-biological origins, for example. It is
believed that at one time Mars had a much thicker atmosphere and active
geology which may have lead to the formation of organic compounds.

~~~
jaggederest
Right, I was actually thinking of synthetic hydrocarbons (for example motor
oil), and thought gasoline was something people could relate to.

Methane on Titan would be a better example, and I actually initially used
methane - but most people have experience with methane in the context of
biology, too.

------
InclinedPlane
This is just a regurgitation of a speculative statement by an uninvolved
scientist. What is this, TMZ?

~~~
pitiburi
I think that if something like this comes from a NASA director, it is not made
up or speculative. A speculation like that not being true would mean the end
of his career.

~~~
InclinedPlane
It's not a NASA director, it's the head of JPL. And it was abundantly clear
from his comment of "perhaps Curiosity has found simple organic molecules"
that he does not actually have any firm knowledge of what Curiosity has or has
not found and is merely speculating along just like every other armchair
scientist has been. And because that is abundantly clear to everyone with a
gram of common sense, notably excluding those who want to hype this
speculation into something it's not, whether or not it's actually an accurate
prediction has about as much impact on his career at JPL as him speculating
about whether or not it will rain in Pasadena tomorrow.

~~~
mturmon
I'm not sure why you're focusing on Charles Elachi or his job title (properly,
"Director of JPL") here.

Charles Elachi (<http://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/elachi_biography.html>)
is an eminent scientist in his own right (follow the link to see) and you can
bet he's very well-informed about MSL, which is JPL's biggest mission right
now. This is because Charles has been running JPL ever since MSL was in the
planning stage. His job would include briefing all interested parties about
the progress of the mission and its instruments for about 8 years now.

In no sense is Charles Elachi "just like every other armchair scientist".

Besides this side show (I work at JPL so it's bothersome to read
mischaracterizations of Charles), I agree with you that this story has been
shifted beyond what it actually means. If I read you right, that's what caused
you to comment. "Organic" has been changed from its chemistry meaning
("containing carbon") to its lay meaning ("coming from something living"). And
"perhaps" has been left out completely.

Charles is a careful speaker and a veteran at communicating results to the
public. This is why his statement contains a specific disclaimer ("not
biological"). You have to give the article credit for getting this right.

~~~
InclinedPlane
The question is whether or not he's speaking from having some insight into
Curiosity's findings or if he's merely engaging in speculation, which I think
is ambiguous given his statements so far. Until he's made a more clear-cut
statement I don't think it's helpful to read too deeply into what he's said
and assume that he has some special knowledge of the mission findings.

------
dendory
Edit: It seems more Italian newspapers are reporting this quote than just this
one site, but for an announcement of this importance, I'm still not going to
believe it until we get some more confirmation.

~~~
anigbrowl
Slate specializes in punditry rather than reportage, I wouldn't worry too much
about it. If it's BS NASA will clarify or deny within a few hours, but there
have been hints leaking from several sources about some exciting news that was
still under embargo while they continue testing. I think it's OK to post since
it includes a legit source/scientific forum.

------
goldfeld
I want to summarize and add some commentary to the article[1] posted by macu
as a reply to another comment.

It's amazingly interesting and well argued. In short, the author says first
that any sufficiently advanced civilization will at one point send self-
replicating probes that will eventually colonize all of the galaxy and even
universe. And it takes only one match to light a fire, and this is important--
that is, for a sufficiently advanced planet, it would take only one rebel, one
mad scientist, to set the colonization, by robots, of every habitable body in
motion.

Assuming the above is true, then why do we not see any sign of these probes?
It follows that there must be a Great Filter that prevented them from ever
being created. Things that qualify as such a filter are not plenty, and
include the original formation of life and the transition from procaryotic to
eucaryotic (taking a couple billion years).

Thus if we find life so easily formed on Mars or anywhere else (especially
eucaryotic cells), we can assume these past events are not really Great
Filters. Then, the only reason we haven't found a single probe is that any
sufficiently advanced civilization destroys itself before it ever gets to that
point. If it's not nuclear weapons, then there must exist technologies that
are sure on our path to discovery while at the same time guaranteeing our
extinction--again, think in terms of things that only need one outlier to use
it in a way that compromises the existence of all on Earth for good.

So he concludes that we must pray that we never find life anywhere else,
because it would in turn give us hope (but not assure us) that there might
exist no Great Filter ahead of us, and the Great Filter was indeed in our
conception as life--thus we are the one single unfathomably lucky planet to
ever have harbored life. If nothing potentially impedes our expansion, we will
be the one sending probes and expanding to everywhere.

Adding my own expansion on this, I believe it's extremely unlikely that there
is some irrevocably cataclysmical tech to be discovered before ever we are
able to send self-replicating probes--ones who can mine the raw materials
needed for unbounded expansion.

I don't think we're that far from that point, and taking from our own
anecdotal existence since it's the only one there is, even if we do annihilate
ourselves before sending them out by chance, other civilizations might not
have done so, if they existed. Thus indeed the only tech that would assure a
Great Filter is the self-replicating technology itself. And that is a strong
point--the author seems to ignore the fact that these probes wouldn't really
be the expansion of humanity, it would be the expansion of drones. And what
might the precursor techs for such a replicating machine look like? If
superior AI is needed at any rate, we could think that the tech leading to
sure extinction is indeed robots who decimate us humans. And since they would
do this as early as chance would afford it, the robots eliminating us would be
as dumb as possible--thus we can assume they would be incapable of advancing
technology on their own; or of coordinating an event like launching themselves
into space, and thus would never leave Earth. In this scenario, we can assume
every civilization that ever got a shot in going to space ended up extinct,
their planet ridden with dumb self-replicating robots who can never launch
themselves into space.

Since self-replicating robots are the hypothesis of the author's argument,
then indeed it makes sense that every potential civilization either never
reached this tech (the Great Filter is in life's conception, or otherwise
somehow denies the existence of self-replicating robots), or it must
absolutely reach it, in order to colonize space, but in doing so it declares
it's extinction.

So, like the author, I also hope[2] that we never find life elsewhere, that we
might put our tiny hopes in thriving as a race, the only one that ever
existed.

[1]: <http://www.nickbostrom.com/extraterrestrial.pdf>

[2]: Just an hour ago, I would have jumped with joy if this NASA announcement
was indeed confirming life.

~~~
Osmium
It's an interesting thought experiment, but not too meaningful. The universe
is still young; it's been around for 13 billion years, the Earth for 6. Given
the immense distances involved, and the complexity and resources required for
interstellar travel, it's not surprising we wouldn't have seen life.

And, for a moment, let's suppose your thought experiment is true, and there's
an alien probe _somewhere_ in our solar system. Would you be surprised we
haven't found it yet? There're an awful lot of places left to look.

~~~
trendspotter
"Assuming the above is true, then why do we not see any sign of these probes?"
Because for example these probes are as tiny as a nano-meter? Hey it is the
year 2012 here on earth. In the last decades we have already shrunk computers
from the size of a entire room to fit in our pockets and soon our blood. And
we ourselves can already build nano-technology, despite not being able to
travel around our galaxy. What tells us that intelligent life has to build
"probes" so big that we are able to detect them. Maybe these probes are just
as large a nanometer and are already flying towards us or were near us or are
already on Pluto. Or maybe other life forms shrink themselves to fit into a
trillionth of a trillionth of the diameter large spaceship to be able to
travel around space faster than light. All of the theories are just expanding
from current knowledge as of today, not factoring in any stunning surprises of
how the universe might really work :)

~~~
chucknelson
Interesting - a race of extremely small living beings that benefit from
quantum mechanics is a really cool idea.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Also explains why we haven't seen them - why colonize a whole planet when an
icy rock in the Oort cloud is enough for your entire civilization?

------
politician
I am quite annoyed with the shield of political correctness that the
scientific community has to wield w.r.t the "life on Mars" issues in order to
preempt yellow journalists who will, without a doubt, use any turn of phrase
to rile up the various factions for and against to generate clicks, sales, and
burnings-at-stakes.

 _As if our opinions change the chemistry of a planet none of us have ever
been to._

------
forgotAgain
NASA seems to be backing off this:

 _Guy Webster, a spokesman for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
Calif., which operates Curiosity, said the findings would be “interesting”
rather than “earthshaking.”_

from
[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/28/science/space/undisclosed-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/28/science/space/undisclosed-
finding-by-mars-rover-fuels-intrigue.html?hpw)

~~~
pitiburi
That is from yesterday, and was trying to calm down expectations after the
first famous “This data is going to be one for the history books. It’s looking
really good.”. Today, the Director of the JPL (and so also Webster's) is the
one saying that what they found are organic molecules. And he said it, by the
way, as a way to calm down people, because what he was trying to explain was
that it was not biological molecules, only organic ones. Of course, it's still
a great deal, but it's not fossils or green little men.

~~~
forgotAgain
_Today, the Director of the JPL (and so also Webster's) is the one saying that
what they found are organic molecules._

According to the article posted he said "perhaps" they found organic
molecules. Or am I reading it wrong?

------
kamaal
Strange that none of the mainstream media has covered this.

Can anybody verify if this news is true? Or its from a trust worthy source?

~~~
pitiburi
It was in a conference in Rome, that's why the first at reporting it are
italian newspapers. It is on the BIG newspapers, so I think is trustwothy:
[http://www.repubblica.it/scienze/2012/11/28/news/curiosity_m...](http://www.repubblica.it/scienze/2012/11/28/news/curiosity_marte_forse_trovati_precursori_vita-47602504/?ref=HRER2-1)

------
zerostar07
How can they be sure it's not earthly contamination?

------
mmariani
More details here
[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/28/science/space/undisclosed-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/28/science/space/undisclosed-
finding-by-mars-rover-fuels-intrigue.html?hp&_r=0)

------
Syssiphus
The keyword here is 'perhaps'.

~~~
pitiburi
You are right. But this "perhaps" is not the kind of "Perhaps it's that,
perhaps it's something else". He is saying "perhaps" because they are still
checking, double checking and extra checking the data. He says "It's
preliminary data that must be checked (on) organic, not biological, molecules"

------
netcan
What exactly is the relationship between organic molecules & life?

~~~
fijal
None. The life on earth as we know it in a traditional sense is based on
carbon-based compounds. You can use anything else that forms polymers
essentially, but carbon happened to happen.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Carbon is not just a little bit better than other elements at forming polymers
and complex molecules it is many orders of magnitude better, and it's hugely
abundant. Many complex carbon-based molecules are even formed in entirely non-
biological processes in significant quantities. Ethanol, ribose, glycine,
adenine, and others, for example. The overall nature of life in the Universe
may prove to be quite a surprise to us humans but for now the overwhelming
scientific consensus is that carbon based chemistry is by far the most likely
route for life to develop anywhere.

~~~
fijal
there are lots of technical reasons that are perfectly valid, true, but it's
not absolutely necessary.

------
Achshar
If they found organic molecules in the very first test then it says something.
The size of sample was very small and from an average patch of crust.

------
forgotAgain
This has become an example of an organization losing control of it's PR when
it goes viral. This is damaging to the credibility of those involved. If /
when the details are given they will be "historic" either for their scientific
importance or the hit it has done to NASA.

------
CuriousityCure
The majority of any existing life would be subterranean as the article states.

~~~
mertd
Is the proper term subterranean or submartian in this case?

------
fondue
I guess I'm pretty naive in wishing they'd accidently rolled over a fossil.

------
pitiburi
another link quoting Elachi [http://www.getradardetectors.com/mars-quotfind-
organic-molec...](http://www.getradardetectors.com/mars-quotfind-organic-
moleculesquot/)

------
trafnar
_may_ have found

~~~
pitiburi
You are right. But this "perhaps" is not the kind of "Perhaps it's that,
perhaps it's something else". He is saying "perhaps" because they are still
checking, double checking and extra checking the data. He says "It's
preliminary data that must be checked (on) organic, not biological, molecules"

------
codeulike
They have Organic Farming on Mars! Oh, wait ...

