LatestYou may have heard that NASA has solved some Mars mystery and will be announcing their findings live on Monday morning.
The best way to watch the announcement live is the NASA TV livestream below, which starts at 11:30 AM EST:
While we don't want to speculate on what it is, there are plenty of theories out there if you Google.
Here are the full details about the announcement, from the NASA press release:
NASA will detail a major science finding from the agency's ongoing exploration of Mars during a news briefing at 8:30 a.m. PDT (11:30 a.m. EDT) on Monday, Sept. 28 at the James Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The event will be broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency's website.
News conference participants will be:
-- Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA Headquarters
-- Michael Meyer, lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters
-- Lujendra Ojha of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta
-- Mary Beth Wilhelm of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California and the Georgia Institute of Technology
-- Alfred McEwen, principal investigator for the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) at the University of Arizona in Tucson
A brief question-and-answer session will take place during the event with reporters on site and by phone. Members of the public also can ask questions during the briefing using #AskNASA.
NASA said the announcement is related to a paper published today, September 28, in Nature Geoscience. The paper confirms that the dark streaks that seasonally appear and fade away on the surface of Mars are caused by running, salty water.
Scientists have long assumed that Mars holds water, based on things like photographs of river flows on the planet and data from rovers, but we've lacked any direct evidence until now.
The liquid on Mars can't be pure water. Mars is simply too cold - the average temperature is about minus 67 degrees Fahrenheit. In March, NASA announced evidence that Mars used to have a vast ocean back when it was warmer. Most of that water was lost to space, but some is likely still there, frozen at the planet's polar ice caps.
The paper doesn't speculate as to where the water is coming from, or what it might mean for humanity's search for alien life.