Fascinating telecon today. The science tidbits were excellent and there was plenty of knowledge to go around. Members of the SAM instrument team were on today and their assessment was simple; no detection of methane has been made yet in all 4 cycles of SAM's 'Martian breathing' sessions. I'll post more on the instrument's details while summarising the initial findings of SAM, the first instrument of its kind to land on Mars, later.
But what struck me was the seemingly endless list of questions on the null results that came from the press. It's not there because it wasn't detected so further investigations are required. That's how science rolls now live with it! Its sort of like the patients you get around here; they get all worked up when you declare them fit but become almost jubilant when declared sick! Null results may be informative to scientific minds but they're just not good enough for publicity I guess!
No comments:
Post a Comment