Here it is.. good stuff.
NASA to Announce 'Significant Findings' of Water on Mars Tuesday
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
And Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
posted: 06:30 pm ET
01 March 2004
UPDATE: Story first posted 3:30 p.m. EST, March 1, 2004
NASA will hold a press conference Tuesday to announce "significant findings" about water on Mars based on evidence from its Opportunity Mars rover.
"It's going to be the most significant science results that we've had from the rovers, and it's bearing on their primary mission," NASA spokesperson Don Savage told SPACE.com . That mission is to find signs of water that might support life.
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Will the announcement change how we think about Mars?
"Anything of a significant nature has that possibility," Savage said. "Sure."
If there is liquid water presently at the surface of Mars, as several lines of rover evidence have hinted, then most scientists agree there is the possibility that life could exist. Water does not mean life, but it is the key ingredient that makes life possible.
Coherent picture
Few scientists doubt that Mars was once warmer and wet. And tremendous amounts of water are locked up as ice in the polar regions. The main question is whether any of that water remains at the surface in liquid form. Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, are exploring opposite sides of the planet near the equator.
On Sunday SPACE.com reported a "palpable buzz" among Mars Exploration Rover (MER) scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena. Sources indicated that a coherent picture of the geology of the rover landing sites was emerging.
Speculation that the announcement might involve any discussion of biology has not been confirmed.
However, there have been repeated observations at the Opportunity site that have puzzled the Mars rover scientists. Using the rover’s Microscopic Imager, the strange spherules, thread-like features and even a larger object detected in rock outcrop have sparked scientific discussion -- both inside and outside of the Mars rover team -- as to whether they are tied to biology.
Poker-faced scientists
Last week at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California -- the control node and scientific nexus for both the Spirit and Opportunity rover work -- an air of excitement wafted through the facility.
Even from poker-faced scientists in-the-know about what "significant findings" are at the heart of tomorrow’s press briefing, mum was the word.
The teams of scientists that are engaged in rover operations are top-notch, said Ray Arvidson, Deputy Principal Investigator for the MER effort. "The best and brightest got here because they have been very careful about how they go about doing their science…and making sure they have data to bolster their arguments," he told SPACE.com .
Arvidson said that all sorts of arguments and hypotheses have been on the table, "from the ultra-conservative to ultra-liberal in terms of what’s been happening, particularly at the Opportunity site."
Awash in data
Jim Garvin, Lead Scientist for Mars and the Moon at NASA Headquarters, said care is being taken to piece together the message from Mars as found by the rovers. Patience is required, he said.
Mars rover science teams are awash in data, Garvin told SPACE.com , "rushing to release every bit of data to the world, while moving on another world and making science-guided decisions about how to figure it all out in context."
Garvin said much of the data is new, and much of it requiring much more refined calibration and validation than pretty pictures.
Major press event
Until now, all post-landing rover science news has been revealed at press conferences held at JPL in Pasadena. A routine had been established and the next press conference was slated at JPL for later this week. But by the end of last week, word was that a "major press event" was being planned for early this week, to be held at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
"We didn't want to sit on this information for a long time," Savage said, adding that the scientists felt they "had gotten the information they needed."
The panel assembled for the press conference includes top brass and a cast of important science characters.
Speakers are: Ed Weiler, Associate Administrator for NASA's Office of Space Science, Jim Garvin, Lead Scientist for Mars and the Moon, Cornell University's Steve Squyres, the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Principal Investigator, as well as MIT geologist John Grotzinger.
Also onboard to discuss the new Mars findings are Joy Crisp, JPL’s MER Project Scientist, and Benton Clark III, MER science team member and Chief Scientist of Space Exploration, Lockheed Martin Space Systems Astronautics Operations in Denver, Colorado.
The press conference will take place at 2 p.m. ET and will be carried live on NASA television.
Sticky, clumping soil
Opportunity has been investigating the soil and a rock outcropping in a shallow depression at its Meridiani Planum landing site, which may once have been the site of a giant lake or ocean. The rocks are layered and may have formed as sediments settled in the bottom of an ancient lake or ocean, or as part of a river bed, but that is only one hypothesis.
Both Opportunity and Spirit have found sticky, clumping soil that scientists already said could contain water. Only small amounts of water, perhaps sucked from the atmosphere, would be needed to mix with salt in the soil and create a brine, which could exist in liquid form even in the frigid environment of Mars.
Opportunity also appears to sit amid a field of hematite, a mineral that typically -- but not always -- forms in the presence of water. The rover has also found countless BB-sized beads. The spherical objects might have formed in a water environment, the scientists have said before, but there could also be other explanations, including volcanism and meteor impacts.
The rovers have sent back a mountain of other data on rocks and soil that, as of late last week, had not been fully analyzed or in some cases had not yet been released.
The rovers landed in January and are schedule to explore Mars for at least three months. They could last into summer, however. The mission price tag is $820 million.
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