NASA Images Suggest Water Still Flows on Mars Options

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Dec. 4, 2006

Dwayne Brown/Erica Hupp
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726/1237

Guy Webster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-6278

MEDIA ADVISORY: M06-186

NASA SCHEDULES BRIEFING TO ANNOUNCE SIGNIFICANT FIND ON MARS

WASHINGTON - NASA hosts a news briefing at 1 p.m. EST, Wednesday, Dec.
6, to present new science results from the Mars Global Surveyor. The
briefing will take place in the NASA Headquarters auditorium located
at 300 E Street, S.W. in Washington and carried live on NASA
Television and www.nasa.gov.

The agency last week announced the spacecraft's mission may be at its
end. Mars Global Surveyor has served the longest and been the most
productive of any spacecraft ever sent to the red planet. Data
gathered from the mission will continue to be analyzed by scientists.


Panelists include:
- Michael Meyer -- Lead Scientist, Mars Exploration Program, NASA
Headquarters, Washington
- Michael Malin -- President and Chief Scientist, Malin Space Science
Systems, San Diego, Calif.
- Kenneth Edgett -- Scientist, Malin Space Science Systems
- Philip Christensen -- Professor, Arizona State University, Tempe,
Ariz.

[volcanopele]

Maybe a gully seen recently but not seen in older MOC images? Phil Christensen could be there to present spectroscopy results of said "new" gully from TES or THEMIS.

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Maybe a gully seen recently but not seen in older MOC images? Phil Christensen could be there to present spectroscopy results of said "new" gully from TES or THEMIS.

You could be right. However, since we're just speculating, I'm wondering if, as tglotch alluded to above, Christensen might be there to discuss and expand on his gully formation model, as published in the Nature paper. And note that Christensen's results in 2003 were based not on THEMIS IR (let alone lower res TES) but rather on THEMIS VIS imagery, which gave a more synpotic view of the gully sites than MOC NA.

Again, just speculating, but maybe Malin and Edgett have detected noticeable changes in already-mapped gully sites and/or have added more gully sites to the existing database increasing the coverage over the mid-latitudes?

Whatever the results turn out to be, tomorrow should be interesting.

EDIT: One should note the fundamental difference between the Malin/Edgett model and Christensen's. In the former, a subsurface origin for the seeps, which implies near-surface reservoirs and/or aquifers, is posited; in the latter, basal melting from overlying snowpacks (due to Mars' obliquity excursions) is invoked. So if tomorrow's press conference is about gullies, and if Malin/Edgett and Christensen have come to some common view on the formation mechanism(s), that, in and of itself, is interesting.

This post has been edited by AlexBlackwell: Dec 6 2006, 01:23 AM

[JonClarke]

One should note the fundamental difference between the Malin/Edgett model and Christensen's. In the former, a subsurface origin for the seeps, which implies near-surface reservoirs and/or aquifers, is posited; in the latter, basal melting from overlying snowpacks (due to Mars' obliquity excursions) is invoked. So if tomorrow's press conference is about gullies, and if Malin/Edgett and Christensen have come to some common view on the formation mechanism(s), that, in and of itself, is interesting.

Why should they not both be right in different places?

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Why should they not both be right in different places?

That's certainly plausible, Jon, and I wouldn't be surprised if that is indeed the case.