Tea at Trianon: Organic Molecules on Mars

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, November 13, 2022

Organic Molecules on Mars

From The Big Think:

The mere presence of organic compounds isn’t evidence for life since there are many ways to produce them abiotically. But the discovery of so many organics, of so many different types, is quite astonishing. Compare this with the state of scientific thinking about Mars following the Viking mission of the 1970s. Neither Viking lander was thought to have found organics, which led Gerald Soffen, the mission’s project scientist, to declare: “No bodies, no life.” In fact, Viking’s gas chromatograph mass spectrometer had detected chlorinated organic compounds, but these were explained away as being due to contamination.
We can only wonder what Soffen, who died before the current era of Mars exploration began, would make of this new treasure trove of organic compounds found by the rovers. Could they be the remnants of microbes that lived billions of years ago? Jacob Heinz from the Technical University Berlin and I have looked at one type of sulfur organic, called thiophenes, discovered by Curiosity. Although we were unable to answer conclusively whether they were of biological origin, we did suggest a test for that: If a light carbon isotope signature is found in sediments or rocks associated with the compounds, they’re likely to be biological. (Read more.)

Mars is alive! From SciTechDaily:

Exploring Earth’s planetary neighbors is no easy task. Mars is the only planet, other than Earth, on which scientists have ground-based rovers, landers, and now even drones that transmit data. So far, all other planetary exploration has relied on orbital imagery.
“InSight’s SEIS is the most sensitive seismometer ever installed on another planet,” says Domenico Giardini. “It affords geophysicists and seismologists an opportunity to work with current data showing what is happening on Mars today — both at the surface and in its interior.” The seismic data, along with orbital images, ensures a greater degree of confidence for scientific inferences. (Read more.)