Late last week, NASA announced a news conference on Monday at 11:30 a.m. (EDT) to "detail a major science finding from the agency's ongoing exploration of Mars." People, of course, immediately got excited about the potential discovery of life on Mars, and NASA's brief press release didn't discourage or encourage such speculation.
Still, there are clues in the makeup of the panel: NASA planetary science director Jim Green; Michael Meyer, lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Program; Lujendra Ojha at the Georgia Institute of Technology; Mary Beth Wilhelm of NASA's Ames Research Center and the Georgia Institute of Technology; and Alfred McEwen, principal investigator for the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar take top GrammysSpeed Read Beyoncé took home album of the year for 'Cowboy Carter' and Kendrick Lamar's diss track 'Not Like Us' won five awards
-
Trump tariffs on Canada, Mexico, China rattle marketsSpeed read The tariffs on America's top three trading partners are expected to raise the prices of everything from gas and cars to tomatoes and tequila
-
Elon Musk operatives access US payment system, aidSpeed Read The Trump administration has given Musk's team access to the Treasury payment system, allowing him to track and control government spending
-
Europe records big leap in renewable energySpeed Read Solar power overtook coal for the first time
-
Blue Origin conducts 1st test flight of massive rocketSpeed Read The Jeff Bezos-founded space company conducted a mostly successful test flight of its 320-foot-tall New Glenn rocket
-
US won its war on 'murder hornets,' officials saySpeed Read The announcement comes five years after the hornets were first spotted in the US
-
Dark energy data suggest Einstein was rightSpeed Read Albert Einstein's 1915 theory of general relativity has been proven correct, according to data collected by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
-
New DNA tests of Pompeii dead upend popular storiesSpeed Read An analysis of skeletal remains reveals that some Mount Vesuvius victims have been wrongly identified
-
NASA's Europa Clipper blasts off, seeking an oceanSpeed Read The ship is headed toward Jupiter on a yearslong journey
-
Detailed map of fly's brain holds clues to human mindSpeed Read This remarkable fruit fly brain analysis will aid in future human brain research
-
Blind people will listen to next week's total eclipseSpeed Read While they can't see the event, they can hear it with a device that translates the sky's brightness into music
