What Mars Mystery Did NASA Solve With “Major Scientific Finding”?

NASA will announce they have solved a Mars mystery with a major scientific finding that has the scientific community waiting with baited breath. The agency will hold a news briefing at 11:30 a.m. EDT on Monday, Sept. 28 at the James Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters in Washington, which will be broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

News conference participants will be:

· Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA Headquarters

· Michael Meyer, lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters

· Lujendra Ojha of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta

· Mary Beth Wilhelm of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California and the Georgia Institute of Technology

· Alfred McEwen, principal investigator for the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) at the University of Arizona in Tucson

However, fueling speculation is the fact that two of the participants authored a paper that claimed images taken from orbit show flowing water on the surface of the Red Planet. Lujendra Ojha of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and Alfred McEwen, principal investigator for the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment at the University of Arizona in Tucson — published their paper on the subject in 2011, when Ojha was still an undergraduate at the University of Arizona.

“If they’re announcing that they’ve found easily accessible, freely flowing liquid water under the surface — which is one of the theories we’ve been hearing for years and years — that has massive implications both for the potential for life on that planet and sustainability of humans,” Doug McCuistion, the former head of NASA’s Mars program, told the Boston Herald. “That would be highly enabling and might be the game-changing trigger for both finding life and hurrying up and getting people to Mars.”

“Based on the people who are speaking and what their backgrounds are … it would seem to imply they have a discovery concerning these mysterious outflows that come from the cliffsides on Mars,” Chris Carberry, executive director of the Massachusetts-based non-profit Explore Mars, told the Herald. “If they do confirm this is water that’s seasonally flowing … that would be an amazing discovery with dramatic implications.”

A brief question-and-answer session will take place during the event with reporters on site and by phone. Members of the public also can ask questions during the briefing using #AskNASA.