Posted on 09/24/2015 4:22:36 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
NASA officials will announce Monday morning a major scientific discovery related to their continued exploration of Mars.
The agency won’t give too many details on what exactly the big reveal is, apart from the fact that the briefing will feature some pretty big names at the space agency (including Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA HQ; Michael Meyer, the lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Program; Lujendra Ojha, a grad student at Georgia Tech; Mary Beth Wilhelm at NASA’s Ames Research Center, and a grad student at Georgia Tech as well; and Alfred McEwen at the University of Arizona in Tucson).
Nevertheless, there are some clues from the speakers and from the chatter over the web in the last few weeks that we can use to speculate what the big discovery might be.
First up, the odd-person out at the news conference is Ojha, a Ph.D candidate in planetary science at Georgia Tech. Why would NASA invite a grad student to speak at announcement like this?
Back in 2011, Ojha sort of accidentally discovered “possible flows of salt water on Mars.” Ojha was studying gullies on Mars that seemed to be indicative of past water activity, and stumbled upon evidence of liquid, briny water that seemed to spring up in finger-like dark flows — known as “recurring slope lineae,” or RSL — on surface of the planet during warm seasons.
That discovery was made while Ojha, as an undergrad at the University of Arizona, was conducting an independent project with McEwen. The pair, along with other collaborators, published a paper in Science detailing their findings. It caused a huge stir, and scientists went to work trying to confirm this.
Ojha continued to work on this after moving onto Georgia Tech to start his graduate studies, presumably in collaboration with Wilhelm. There’s a good chance the presence of both of them, plus McEwen, at Monday’s announcement means NASA will be revealing something big about the RSL sites.
What’s more, the RSL sites have been a hotly-discussed topic in space research circles in the last few weeks. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has taken images of RSL fading in cooler months but rising back up again in the same locations during warmer months. Over 200 scientists gathered at the second Mars 2020 Landing Site Workshop in Monrovia, California last month to discuss, among other things, what the RSL sites might be and how they needed to be studied in the future.
If the discovery is indeed liquid water, it could be that the source is underground — and that flowing water might exist under the surface of Mars.
And where there is water, there is the potential for life.
Is any of this true? Is NASA going to tell us there is a flowing river or planet-wide ocean sitting underneath all of that red rock? We’ll have to wait till Monday to confirm. Try to nerdgasm everywhere.
Hugo Chavez was right. Capitalism killed Mars!
I don’t know but I will bet that somehow they work islam into it.
Don’t forget aliens.
I heard they discovered a massive underground lake back in August, then nothing more.
They found an old Norge Refrigerator there.
I have very good connections at NASA.
What I’m hearing: Think Jimmy Hoffa. You heard it here first.
Hey! We can send millions of so-called “refugees” now that there’s water!!
The Obama administration will announce that we will accept 100,000 refugees fleeing the Martian civil war.
they found an SUV that was responsible for destroying Mars’ climate and atmosphere.
So they’ll finally reveal hookers with 3 boobs?
“We’ll tell you, we just need more money first.”
Ping
They happened to bump into Marvin,and guess what he’s still got a bad attitude.
If NASA is involved, the "big" announcement will be man-made Global Warming on Mars.
A single molecule of water, showing the irrefutable proof of life, unlike the clump of cells that is laying on a stainless steel table crying while it’s face is being harvested, which is not life.
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