Latest shots of Mars

While many of us  Earthlings are hoping Curiosity will find some sort of life on Mars,  there are those from the neverending supply of naysayers  like Kenneth Chang of the NYTimes below saying it's not possible.  We can still hope, can't we?

....In findings that are as scientifically significant as they are crushing to the popular imagination, NASA reported Thursday that its Mars rover, Curiosity, has deflated hopes that life could be thriving on Mars today.

The conclusion, published in the journal Science, comes from the fact that Curiosity has been looking for methane, a gas that is considered a possible calling card of microbes, and has so far found none of it. While the absence of methane does not rule out the possibility of present-day life on Mars — there are plenty of microbes, on Earth at least, that do not produce methane — it does return the idea to the realm of pure speculation without any hopeful data to back it up.

The history of human fascination with the possibility of life on Mars is rich, encompassing myriad works of science fiction, Percival Lowell’s quixotic efforts to map what turned out to be imaginary canals, Orson Welles’s panic-inducing 1938 “War of the Worlds” radio play, and of course Bugs Bunny’s nemesis, Marvin the Martian.

But Marvin apparently did not emit enough methane for Curiosity’s sensitive instruments to find him.

“You don’t have direct evidence that there is microbial process going on,” said Sushil K. Atreya, a professor of atmospheric and space science at the University of Michigan and a member of the science team.

But NASA scientists are going strictly by their data, and they are leery about drawing broader implications to the question once posed by David Bowie, “Is there life on Mars?” John P. Grotzinger, the project scientist for the Curiosity mission, would go only so far as to say that the lack of this gas “does diminish” the possibility of methane-exhaling creatures going about their business on Mars.

“It would have been great if we got methane,” Dr. Atreya said. “It just isn’t there.”........

Who's next in line for a trip to Mars? India. They are set  to take off on their Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) in the next few weeks but might have to do without  the additional communications hub offered by NASA because of the govt. shutdown.

More pics of Mars here.