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.
"The revelation will more likely deal with water on Mars, since Ojha, Wilhelm, and McEwen are among the authors of a paper that asserts images captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show the existence of flowing water on the planet's surface," says USA Today. Probably not coincidentally, those three are presenting their paper later this week at the European Planetary Science Congress in Nantes, France. You can read the abstract, or just wait until the news conference at 11:30.
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.
-
SpaceX breaks Starship losing streak in 10th testspeed read The Starship rocket's test flight was largely successful, deploying eight dummy satellites during its hour in space
-
Rabbits with 'horns' sighted across Coloradospeed read These creatures are infected with the 'mostly harmless' Shope papilloma virus
-
Lithium shows promise in Alzheimer's studySpeed Read Potential new treatments could use small amounts of the common metal
-
Scientists discover cause of massive sea star die-offSpeed Read A bacteria related to cholera has been found responsible for the deaths of more than 5 billion sea stars
-
'Thriving' ecosystem found 30,000 feet underseaSpeed Read Researchers discovered communities of creatures living in frigid, pitch-black waters under high pressure
-
New York plans first nuclear plant in 36 yearsSpeed Read The plant, to be constructed somewhere in upstate New York, will produce enough energy to power a million homes
-
Dehorning rhinos sharply cuts poaching, study findsSpeed Read The painless procedure may be an effective way to reduce the widespread poaching of rhinoceroses
-
Breakthrough gene-editing treatment saves babyspeed read KJ Muldoon was healed from a rare genetic condition
