Mars Rovers: What DID they find?
- Thread starter crookeddy
- Start date
they found some blueberries
the most important accomplishment was that they confirmed the existence of water on the martian surface sometime in the past.
You know, you COULD read it anyway, it would answer your question.
It's the details, and it's the level of detail. They've filled in a lot of holes as well as gathered new information that poses new questions.
They did not just go "take cool pictures", that's an insult to the people involved in the mission.
We don't need another thread that goes down this road, so I'll just directed you to here. Irregardless, your assertion that scientists didn't discover anything that they didn't already know has not been backed up by you in the slightest and once you can attempt to do so then we can start talking about actual arguments
...Of course, both the rover discoveries and earlier orbital imagery findings were based on an ultra-optimistic interpretation. The old Viking/Mariner guesswork basically lacked scientific merit, considering how poorly the basic geochemistry and geophysics of Mars were understood at the time (and today, for that matter).
It's just the great bulk of varied data from the recent series of missions that forces the conclusion that yes, these individual markers for the possibility of water in the past do indeed add up to the conclusion that there was water there. Alternate explanations still exist for each individual datapoint, but those warrant little further consideration now. In contrast, some older nutcase theories such as the wish to see a "shoreline" in the visual-wavelength maps have gained in merit, and have been further refined to work out the original kinks.
Without the rovers, we could never have gotten confirmation on the geochemistry features that signify former presence of standing water. Yet the scientists very well knew that if there was water there, those features would be the ones they should look for. The instruments were built to look for them. Does that mean the scientists and engineers knew there was water on Mars? Naah. They went looking for it because that was in the mission manifest, just like Viking went looking for life. They succeeded because the water was there; Viking failed because the life (of the type that its instruments could detect) wasn't.
Timo Saloniemi
It's just the great bulk of varied data from the recent series of missions that forces the conclusion that yes, these individual markers for the possibility of water in the past do indeed add up to the conclusion that there was water there. Alternate explanations still exist for each individual datapoint, but those warrant little further consideration now. In contrast, some older nutcase theories such as the wish to see a "shoreline" in the visual-wavelength maps have gained in merit, and have been further refined to work out the original kinks.
Without the rovers, we could never have gotten confirmation on the geochemistry features that signify former presence of standing water. Yet the scientists very well knew that if there was water there, those features would be the ones they should look for. The instruments were built to look for them. Does that mean the scientists and engineers knew there was water on Mars? Naah. They went looking for it because that was in the mission manifest, just like Viking went looking for life. They succeeded because the water was there; Viking failed because the life (of the type that its instruments could detect) wasn't.
Timo Saloniemi
The princess of Barsoom, duh. 
I'd like to know what would constitute a major discovery. The eggheads had long-since inferred that there aren't any green-skinned humanoids walking around, and were bascially certain that there wasn't any lichen, ameobas or mushrooms either. The rovers proved that conclusively, and while this is a negative confirmation it STILL adds to the body of knowledge. There's enough data that the rovers have beamed back to keep people far smarter than we, busy for many years to come. The rovers were built mainly to explore surface and near-subsurface geology, with an eye on the presence of water at the present or geological past. It's succeeded beyond any of the designers' dreams in that respect, and has made a LOT of cross-discipline people very happy as well.
Now, with the Phoenix lander well on its way, we'll have a chance to do complex soil analysis in the way the primitive scoops and furnaces of the Viking landers never could. We're still working on the axom that where there's water, there's life - and THIS time, landing in an area where there should be water, we'll hopefully get more clues to answer that question.
Oh, and a bunch more pictures too.
Mark
Now, with the Phoenix lander well on its way, we'll have a chance to do complex soil analysis in the way the primitive scoops and furnaces of the Viking landers never could. We're still working on the axom that where there's water, there's life - and THIS time, landing in an area where there should be water, we'll hopefully get more clues to answer that question.
Oh, and a bunch more pictures too.
Mark
<sigh>
They're still doing color-correction on the sky. I really have to wonder what they're afraid of up there.
They're still doing color-correction on the sky. I really have to wonder what they're afraid of up there.
Exactly.
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