Curiosity’s latest reported findings, or lack thereof, are interpreted from the standpoint of their implications for the Viking Labeled Release experiment, and for life on Mars in general. As of the writing of this abstract, Curiosity has reported no findings related to those anticipated by the author’s last year’s paper, “Stealth Life Detection Experiments Aboard Curiosity.” However, Curiosity scientists have stated that soil and rock samples have been taken and analyzed, and abundant images have been downloaded. The only (indirectly) relevant reports issued by Curiosity scientists concern small-molecule organics found in a soil sample, which simple compounds they suggest might be terrestrial contamination, and images of rocks with colored (green) patches, the latter not of sufficient resolution (of which the cameras are capable) to detect possible evidence of biology. Hopefully, by the time of preparation of the body of this paper, more information will be available.

Date Published: 26 September 2013
PDF: 13 pages
Proc. SPIE 8865, Instruments, Methods, and Missions for Astrobiology XVI, 886503 (26 September 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2023063

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8865:
Instruments, Methods, and Missions for Astrobiology XVI
Richard B. Hoover; Gilbert V. Levin; Alexei Yu. Rozanov; Nalin C. Wickramasinghe, Editor(s)