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.
October 1st is the beginning of the fiscal year for the entire government. That’s a week from now.
I just hope the third breast came as a result of her becoming a mute as well...
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock)
From The Wasteland by T. S. Eliot
lol!
Did the bad guy in Interstellar have a twin Brother?
They found Clinton’s Legacy under a Martian icefield.
They finally found Jimmy Hoffa... and, Jerry Rivera wasn’t there for the ‘discovery’ of the body.
A bipedal tapir?
Well, that will leave a mark! Good call.
I never read any Philip Dick books but I am lead to believe the latest Total Recall movie is closest to the book.
The original short story didn’t involve Mars either, IIRC.
Not alien.
"Lujendra Ojha, a grad student at Georgia Tech"
Research has uncovered a photo of Ojha's family, taken after a recent food fight in an Italian Restaurant:
So that’s where they put Hoffa!
++++
Shhhhh. It's a secret until it's announced by NASA.😉
Alice B Toklas? 😂😆😎
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