NASA has also revealed who will be attending the briefing, leading to speculation as to what the announcement might be. The panel on September 28 will consist of Jim Green, NASA’s director of planetary science and Michael Meyer, lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Program, Mary Beth Wilhelm at Nasa’s Ames Research Center, and Alfred McEwen at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Also, Lujendra Ojha, a grad student at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta is also expected to attend. Ojha had discovered the evidence of potential flows of salt water on Mars in the warmer months. He along with his then professor McEwen, had co-authored a study on how there may be chances that water could be lying underneath the surface in a 2011 study. As Inverse.com suggests, his presence at Monday’s event suggests that there could be further news on this – and if there’s water on Mars, that means there’s the potential for life on the red planet. The formation of mountains have always caught the attention of Ojha and that’s why he was studying Mars. That’s when his attention was diverted to clearly visible gullies that is the outcome of flowing water on the planet. To inspect the seasonal changes and the images of craters, he used a computer algorithm and was able to find out features that were not regular within a crater that were not the result of gullies and could have been recent water tracks. In 2011, he told CNN: “When I first saw them, I had no idea what it was. I just thought it was a streak made by dust or something similar. It was a lucky accident. There’s going to be years of research put into this to even prove that this is definitely a proof of water. And from that, we can move on: OK if this is water, what are the chances that life could be in these kinds of surroundings?” That’s where the press conference could come into picture. NASA may be ready to announce that there is water on Mars, as the “years of research” may potentially be up with water as the distinct chances of life. He added at the time, “That would be exciting. That’s kind of like the holy grail of science: To find our neighbor, to find life on some other planet.” The announcement will be broadcast live on Monday, September 28 on NASA TV at 11.30 a.m. EDT.
