JPL director: Curiosity may have found organic, not biological molecules

Re:JPL director: Curiosity may have found organic, not biolo... by forgotAgain on Wednesday November 28, 2012 @08:49AM (#4842476)

NASA seems to be backing off this:

Guy Webster, a spokesman for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which operates Curiosity, said the findings would be “interesting” rather than “earthshaking.”

from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/28/science/space/undisclosed-...

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Re:JPL director: Curiosity may have found organic, not biolo... by pitiburi on Wednesday November 28, 2012 @09:29AM (#4842668)

That is from yesterday, and was trying to calm down expectations after the first famous “This data is going to be one for the history books. It’s looking really good.”. Today, the Director of the JPL (and so also Webster's) is the one saying that what they found are organic molecules. And he said it, by the way, as a way to calm down people, because what he was trying to explain was that it was not biological molecules, only organic ones. Of course, it's still a great deal, but it's not fossils or green little men.

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Re:JPL director: Curiosity may have found organic, not biolo... by forgotAgain on Wednesday November 28, 2012 @09:42AM (#4842720)

Today, the Director of the JPL (and so also Webster's) is the one saying that what they found are organic molecules.

According to the article posted he said "perhaps" they found organic molecules. Or am I reading it wrong?

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Re:JPL director: Curiosity may have found organic, not biolo... by nollidge on Wednesday November 28, 2012 @11:36AM (#4843379)

He was talking about the data from the entire mission, not just recent findings. The whole thing has been blown out of proportion.

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