Nasa to hold major announcement about new Curiosity discovery on Mars

Agency is being very secretive about what has been discovered on Red Planet

Andrew Griffin
Thursday 07 June 2018 02:14 BST
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NASA Mars Helicopter Technology Demonstration

Nasa has found exciting new "results" on Mars and will hold a press conference to reveal them, it has announced.

The agency has refused to reveal more details of what it has discovered on the Red Planet. But the new research came from the Curiosity rover that has been collecting samples from the planet, in part in an attempt to understand whether it was ever a home for alien life.

Nasa's announcement only said that it would hold a press conference about "new science results from NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover". It did not give any detail on what those results were.

But it did say that a range of experts would attend the conference. They largely appear to be researchers who investigate the kinds of organic molecules that might be found in the planet's soil, and the information that might tell us about the atmosphere.

Attendees include Paul Mahaffy, who leads the Solar System Exploration Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and is in charge of the analysis of samples collected by Curiosity. Researchers in geophysics and atmospheric chemistry will also attend.

The event begins at 2pm eastern, or 7pm in the UK. It will be streamed live on Nasa Television, the agency's website, and on a range of social networks and services such as Twice and YouTube.

The agency is also asking members of the public to send in questions. Those can be sent by posting on social media using the hashtag #AskNasa.

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