NASA Briefing on New Mars Finding This Afternoon

ipsender writes with a NASA announcement: "NASA will host a news briefing on Thursday, Aug. 4, at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT) about a significant new Mars science finding. The briefing will be held at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The new finding is based on observations from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been orbiting the Red Planet since 2006." You can catch the briefing online at the NASA TV site.

Comments

An alien spacecraft

[wsxyz]

...mysteriously pinned to the bottom of a dust-filled crater.

My guess -

[Anonymous Coward]

Methane. It's going to be something about methane. Look at all the geologists on the briefing panel;

The briefing panelists are:
-- Philip Christensen, geophysicist, Arizona State University, Tempe
-- Colin Dundas, research geologist, U.S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff, Ariz.
-- Alfred McEwen, planetary geologist, University of Arizona, Tucson
-- Michael Meyer, Mars Exploration Program lead scientist, NASA Headquarters
-- Lisa Pratt, biogeochemist, Indiana University, Bloomington

Re:My guess -

[pahles]

No, it is indicative of the presence of methane.

Re:My guess -

[squidflakes]

Humm... looking at the biographies of the scientists involved, I'm going to guess something about water, ice, and life.

Re:My guess -

[Darth Snowshoe]

They have certainly found methane on Mars, and so far can't conclusively explain where it's coming from, or its periodic nature;

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/news/marsmethane.html

Here's the good bit;

"Methane is quickly destroyed in the Martian atmosphere in a variety of ways, so our discovery of substantial plumes of methane in the northern hemisphere of Mars in 2003 indicates some ongoing process is releasing the gas," said Dr. Michael Mumma of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center [...]

Take a look at Lisa Pratt, among today's panelists - her IU home page is kind of a big clue;

Lisa M. Pratt, Provost's Professor of Geological Sciences, Biogeochemistry

Research Interests:

Geomicrobiology of sulfate-reducing microorganisms
Biotic and abiotic fractionation of sulfur isotopes in modern and ancient oceans and lakes
Influence of wildfire on carbon isotopic excursions during the Cretaceous
Fate of complex organic molecules on the surface of Mars

      Ph.D., 1982, Geology, Princeton University
        M.S., 1978, Geology, University of North Carolina
        M.S., 1974, Botany, University of Illinois
        B.A., 1972, Botany, University of North Carolina

Re:My guess -

[Splab]

I'm hoping oil then, that should get us to Mars in a hurry!

Re:My guess -

[pz]

Lisa Pratt studies sulfur and specifically biological sulfur with respect to the surface of Mars. Check out her lab's web page:

http://geology.indiana.edu/pratt/

Here's a list of her research interests from that site:

Geomicrobiology of sulfate-reducing microorganisms
Biotic and abiotic fractionation of sulfur isotopes in modern and ancient oceans and lakes
Influence of wildfire on carbon isotopic excursions during the Cretaceous
Fate of complex organic molecules on the surface of Mars

As far as I can tell from that list, Dr. Pratt is the only hard scientist. The others are more involved in managing the program (Meyer) or designing the instruments (Christensen, Dundas, McEwen). Interestingly, there are no post-docs or graduate students listed, and they would have been the lead investigators doing the actual work -- perhaps this is a reaction to the Felisa Wolfe-Simon snafu? I'm not familiar with the field, though, so much of this is speculation from 2 minutes' work with Google. Take it for what it's worth.

Jobtanium

[Nanosphere]

According to reading from the Mars reconnisance orbiter, they have detected sizable quantities of Jobtanium, a rare element currently found on Earth. NASA is proposing to congress and the Obama administration a manned mission to Mars to collect this Jobtanium

Real Time

[dylan_-]

That's at 18:00 GMT. I assume everyone on Slashdot knows their GMT offset.

This better be good, NASA

[markdowling]

You made the front page of slashdot with a tease release - now you'd better produce. Nothing less than alien life or alternatively a new way to jailbreak iOS will do.