Martian Monday: NASA Claims Big Mars Mystery Solved, Details Today
NASA has teased the world claiming it has solved a Mars mystery. Word of the space agency's discovery has triggered a speculation storm on the internet, with many wondering if life has been found.
According to CNN, the space agency will announce a major scientific finding on Monday at an urgently called 'special news conference'. Fans have wondered if NASA is going to announce the finding of life by its rover Curiosity while others jokingly tweeted if they found Mark Watney, the biologist played by Matt Damon who is abandoned on the Red Planet in the film The Martian.
The space agency itself has not responded to the speculation. Instead, in a news release it announced members who will be present during the conference, which incidentally provided a vital clue. The most likely reason being speculated is the official confirmation of water's discovery on the Mars.
Data from Curiosity has lent credence to the theory that percholate in Martian soil can absorb water vapor, lowering the freezing point of water. Researchers have indicated that conditions at places on Mars were favorable for formation of liquid brine during nights. Colder and higher altitude regions were said to be more favorable.
"Gale Crater is one of the least likely places on Mars to have conditions for brines to form, compared to sites at higher latitudes or with more shading. So if brines can exist there, that strengthens the case they could form and persist even longer at many other locations, perhaps enough to explain RSL activity," Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona, Tucson, who is participating in Monday's conference, had said in April this year.
