[X] My Assistant

[HughFromAlice]

Been busy with other things for a while, so it's nice to be back and see all the photo imaging work on the site going from strength to strength

I think a lot of you guys would really enjoy "Curiosity On Mars:First Results" 3 part x approx 2 hr presentations at the EuroGeosciences Union General Assembly published on the EGU Channel on YouTube on May16th. Plenty of good listening for the weekend! Although I enjoy the NASA press briefings, it's great to hear key mission scientists talking full-on to their peers. The talks travel along at a nice fast thought provoking pace!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPbbhfGg0nc

Admin: Moved post from 'First Drill' thread.

[Explorer1]

It looks more and more likely that methane emissions are highly localized, dependent on wind, temperature, etc. to spread across a wide area.
We may have to wait for dedicated instruments (on Mangalyaan) and missions (Exomars Trace Gas Orbiter) to show which places it occurs. Then would come a lander, and ground truth would follow.

[marsbug]

Barring instrument faults on either the rover or orbiter in question, three scenarios pop into my head: Either the methane is somehow very well isolated to a higher region of the atmosphere, the lifespan of methane in the martian atmosphere is much shorter than previously believed, or some unrecognised factor in the equation has changed. Could Mars Express re-take the atmospheric methane measurements?