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nasa mars discovery

NASA officials are set to reveal a major science finding about Mars during a news conference in Washington DC on Monday, September 28, at 11:30 a.m. EDT.

The conference will be streamed live by NASA TV.

NASA described the discovery in a media advisory as a “Mars mystery solved”.

Photo NASA

Photo NASA

The space agency currently operates five spacecraft around and on Mars – the rovers Opportunity and Curiosity, which landed in 2004 and 2012, respectively, and the orbiters Mars Odyssey, MRO and MAVEN (which stands for Mars Environment and Volatile Evolution).

Mars Odyssey arrived at the Red Planet in 2001, and MRO got there in 2006. MAVEN just celebrated its one-year anniversary in Mars orbit last week.

Europe’s Mars Express spacecraft and India’s Mars Orbiter Mission probe are also still eyeing the Red Planet from above, bringing the number of currently functional Mars orbiters to five.

MRO’s HiRISE camera features a telescopic lens that can pick out features as small as 3.3 feet (1 meter) across on the Martian surface. The camera also collects images in near-infrared wavelengths, allowing researchers to learn about the mineralogy of Mars.

NASA has announced it will reveal a major scientific discovery related to their continued exploration of Mars.

The findings will be detailed during a news briefing at 11:30 a.m. EDT on Monday, September 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.NASA Mars announcement 2015

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 won’t give too many details on what exactly the big reveal is.

According to the space agency’s website, the 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