At 2pm EST today NASA will issue a press briefing during which it intends to announce significant findings about Mars. These findings come as a result of the ongoing success of its two rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. The word on the street is that the significant finding will be about evidence of past water on Mars. What would be really exciting would be some evidence of current water, realistically not as the freely flowing sort we know and love here on Earth, but perhaps as very salty brines intermingled with the Martian soil. However, where there’s water there’s a chance for life. Perhaps ‘significant’ could even mean… no, it couldn’t… could it?
Update: Just watching NASA TV now. Well, it’s exciting but not the big news that some were speculating. The Opportunity team have found conclusive proof that layered rocks seen on the day Opportunity landed were indeed laid down in a very wet environment. So there was water on Mars millions of years ago. I guess we’ll have to wait for the next press release to hear about Martians.