[X] My Assistant

[ElkGroveDan]

Dan, I think you've mistaken a part of sunlit soil in Phil's image as white stuff.

Agreed.

[ugordan]

Here's a flicker between sol 21 and 24 showing change (or, rather, lack of):


Ignore the color of the brightest part of the white stuff, it's overexposed. The small white chunk in sol 21 image appears to disappear in sol 24 (inset).

[nprev]

Hmm. Thanks, Emily.

So, basically, the most wildly optimistic and hoped-for outcome would be to detect a plethora of simple products of thermal decomposition, which might hint at the existence of more complex molecules.

What are the design limitations of mass spectrometers with respect to identifying organics, anyhow? If I understand their operation correctly, they'll provide gross elemental composition with sort of a hint at relative abundances, but there's really no way to infer chemical structures except by comparison with standard "pure" spectra of a given substance.

[tedstryk]

So, basically, the most wildly optimistic and hoped-for outcome would be to detect a plethora of simple products of thermal decomposition, which might hint at the existence of more complex molecules.

Yes, pretty much, save if something like this were to happen