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The Rock from Mars: A Detective Story on Two Planets
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Average Rating:  out of 8 Reviews
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Price: $25.95
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Sale: $10.74
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Manufacturer: Random House
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EAN (European Article Number): 9781400060108
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Number of Items: 1
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Binding: Hardcover
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Author: Kathy Sawyer
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Publisher: Random House
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Dewey Decimal Number: 576.839
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Publication Date: 2006-02-14
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Reading Level: 416
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Description: In this riveting book, acclaimed journalist Kathy Sawyer reveals the deepest mysteries of space and some of the most disturbing truths on Earth. The Rock from Mars is the story of how two planets and the spheres of politics and science all collided at the end of the twentieth century.
It began sixteen million years ago. An asteroid crashing into Mars sent fragments flying into space and, eons later, one was pulled by the Earth’s gravity onto an icy wilderness near the southern pole. There, in 1984, a geologist named Roberta Score spotted it, launching it on a roundabout path to fame and controversy.
In its new home at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, the rock languished on a shelf for nine years, a victim of mistaken identity. Then, in 1993, the geochemist Donald “Duck” Mittlefehldt, unmasked the rock as a Martian meteorite. Before long, specialist Chris Romanek detected signs of once-living organisms on the meteorite. And the obscure rock became a rock star.
But how did nine respected investigators come to make such startling claims about the rock that they triggered one of the most venomous scientific battles in modern memory? The narrative traces the steps that led to this risky move and follows the rippling impact on the scientists’ lives, the future of space exploration, the search for life on Mars, and the struggle to understand the origins of life on Earth.
From the second the story broke in Science magazine in 1996, it spawned waves of excitement, envy, competitive zeal, and calculation. In academia, in government agencies, in laboratories around the world, and even in the Oval Office–where an inquisitive President Clinton had received the news in secret–players of all kinds plotted their next moves. Among them: David McKay, the dynamic geologist associated with the first moon landing, who labored to achieve at long last a second success; Bill Schopf of UCLA, a researcher determined to remain at the top of his field and the first to challenge McKay’s claims; Dan Goldin, the boss of NASA; and Dick Morris, the controversial presidential adviser who wanted to use the story for Clinton’s reelection and unfortunately made sure it ended up in the diary of a $200-an-hour call girl.
Impeccably researched and thrillingly involving, Kathy Sawyer’s The Rock from Mars is an exemplary work of modern nonfiction, a vivid account of the all-too-human high-stakes drive to learn our true place in the cosmic scheme.
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Customer Reviews
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Review Summary: The Rock From Mars |
Date: 2008-08-08 |
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Details: Every space buff should read this book. Like a mystery story, it is a page turner, but with a difference. This mystery story really happened, and the story continues with the Mars lander. Highly recommended. |
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Review Summary: Highly Recommended |
Date: 2008-03-06 |
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Details: I highly recommend this excellent, very honest, well documented and balanced book. Everyone interested in the intelligent design controversy should read this book. It gives an accurate picture of both how science works and scientists as people which is quite in contrast to the public's perception of both. Sawyer documents that scientists not uncommonly behave like children arguing whose father is the strongest or can beat someone else's dad up. The book is about the scientific question of whether life once existed on Mars. The focus of the book is on a meteorite that researchers concluded is from Mars. Inside of the meteorite scientists have found evidence of bacterial life. When one figures in the dollar cost of Mars probes and the enormous time, money and resources spent on researching the Mars rocks, the cost is in the billions. Although much has been learned about many things in science from the research, a common concern is that the money could be much better spent elsewhere. One example is, one researcher has estimated that a billion dollars could defeat tuberculosis. Why spend this much money on Mars probes and on rocks to find evidence of life there? The reason is, if life, any kind on life, is proven to have existed, or to exist, on Mars this will demonstrate that, given the right conditions, life will eventually evolve most anywhere, providing strong support for both naturalism and molecules to man evolution. It will also strike a blow to theism and religion in general. In the end, this 394 page book concluded that there does not seem to be much good scientific evidence that the rock contained evidence of life, nor does there exist evidence of life, past or present, on Mars. On another point, it is commonly believed that J. William Schopf has proven the existence of at least 5 microbial life forms dating back to 3.5 billion years. I have been telling this to my students since he published his conclusions back in 1980. Sawyer documents that this claim is mostly speculation and good arguments exist to dispute this "well known fact." For example, see page 249 to 254 for Dr. Brasier's valid well documented scientific concerns about this claim, and page 254-260 for Schopf's attempt to rehabilitate himself. Sawyer reports that a Nature journal summary wrote that in the end "most judges gave a clear points victory to Brasier" and Schopf "had won few converts to his cause" (page 260). From now on after I explain to my students the "long held fact that humans have 100,000 genes has now been shown to be false" I will explain that the "fact" cited in your textbook that at least 5 microbial life forms dating back 3.5 billion years has been confirmed is also now very doubtful.
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Review Summary: Rock from Mars Review |
Date: 2007-01-20 |
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Details: This is a great book if you like exploring where science originates and how personal battles control the dominant paradigm. Sawyer traces the journey of ALH84001 from its discovery in the Antartic ice by Robbie Score to its place of fame as the first possible clue to possible bacterial life on Mars. Sawyer also includes the massive controversy at stake, the secrecy of the research, and the rush accompanied with going public with their findings. In addition, she explores the backlash against the claims of the McKay group claims and their attempts to explore every possible avenue of contamination. Bringing together scientists across the board from glacial geologists to chemical specialists, ALH84001 allows almost everyone in the scientific community to evaluate the possibility that Mars might have seeded Earth with microbacteria or vice versa and, thanks to Sawyer, you can too. |
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Review Summary: Human Reaction In the Face of a Possible Paradigm Shift |
Date: 2006-07-13 |
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Details: This book is a page-turner! The possibility of having discovered traces of ancient Martian life, no matter how primitive, has sent ripples throughout the (mainly scientific) world. This book gives an excellent overview of the entire story - from the 1984 discovery of this Martian rock in the Antarctic to the present time. As expected, there was much debate about whether the rock did indeed show signs of primitive, ancient Martian life. Consequently, two main camps formed: those trying to prove that the rock did show such signs of Martian life and those proposing alternative explanations for the rock's interesting features. I think that the author has done an excellent job in presenting the story without taking sides in the occasionally heated debates that took place over the years. There are no good guys and no bad guys here, just people trying to understand what had been found in the face of a possible paradigm shift. This book can be enjoyed by anyone because of its clear prose and engaging writing style. Nevertheless, because of its subject matter, it will likely be more popular among science buffs. |
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Review Summary: Tales of the Rock Star |
Date: 2006-05-11 |
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Details: We are fascinated by the possibility that there may be some sort of life elsewhere than on the Earth. The possibility that there is no life elsewhere is equally interesting, but it doesn't, for instance, make interesting science fiction movies. Life outside of Earth has most often been imagined on Mars, which for all its differences from our planet is the one that is most similar to our own. Thus, when on 7 August 1996 researchers announced that they had found evidence that might show fossilized life on Mars, it was not just a scientific announcement, but one which that non-scientist President Clinton had to take part in making. _The Rock from Mars: A Detective Story on Two Planets_ (Random House) by Kathy Sawyer tells how the announcement came about, the science behind it, and the personalities (and the infighting) that made it happen and have kept research in the arena to the current day at various cutting edges at the limits of our understanding. Sawyer, a science reporter for the _Washington Post_, has made this story not only interesting but exciting, a refreshing view of how big science is done these days.
The story began sixteen million years ago with an asteroid slamming into Mars. This sent up debris, and some of the debris became asteroids in their own right, and came down on Earth. This particular rock came down 13,000 years ago, and remained in the ice of Antarctica until it was discovered in 1984. The special nature of the rock, wasn't understood until 1993, when geochemists started examining it, and found that it was 4.5 billion years old; it was the oldest known rock from any planet including our own. More important, they found carbonates and iron crystals that were similar to such chemicals produced by organisms on Earth. Sawyer carefully explains the process of examining the rock; acid, electron scanning microscopes, ultraviolet lasers and more are brought upon it. There is lots of evidence that was turned up, and whatever the aftermath of the research, the team of David McKay, a famously careful and conservative researcher, did such a thorough job that the evidence was never in question. It was the interpretation of the evidence that proved to be troubling. Many scientists were upset that the researchers were taking undue advantage of a hot story and making it seem that their interpretation was factual rather than tentative. NASA was criticized from the start for hyping the research and using it for political reasons. In the ten years since the announcement, the controversy has become less prominent, but among scientists who are looking into the subject, there are still opposing camps on the matter, and vehement disagreements, and hurt feelings.
As Sawyer winds up the story, there is no overall agreement on just what McKay's team turned up. There have been different ways of looking at the rock since then, none of them making a conclusive case. This is not a bad thing. Because of the controversy, new techniques have been brought into play and new discoveries have been made. For instance, what was learned about possible earthly contamination of the rock will be used when bits of Mars are brought back by robot spacecraft sometime in the future. Because of the controversy, there has been increased interest and better explanations for the origins of life on Earth in the most unlikely and unwelcoming of environments. With its depiction of all-too-human scientists attempting objectivity when contemplating the great mystery of life elsewhere, Sawyer's account is an appealing picture of a good example of how science works. |
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