KATHMANDU: NASA is making public the findings of the US space agency's ongoing exploration of Mars on Monday.

Young Nepali space scientist, Lujendra Ojha, whose research suggested water could be present in the red planet, has also been included in the list of guest speakers -- indicating that NASA may officially confirm the presence of water in Mars among other findings.

What about potential of alien life? We have to wait for the news conference, which NASA said is to announce "Mars mystery solved".

Ojha and Assistant Professor at the Georgia Tech James Wray studied 13 RSL sites out of 200 images obtained from the same orbiter's Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) instrument.

But their collective study failed to find any spectral signature tied to water or salts.

However, they found distinct and consistent spectral signatures of ferric and ferrous minerals at most of the sites they studied.

With his roots in Mahadevsthan VDC, Doti of far-western Nepal, Ojha was brought up in Kathmandu.

2011 report in Science

Seasonal Flows on Warm Martian Slopes

Abstract

Water probably flowed across ancient Mars, but whether it ever exists as a liquid on the surface today remains debatable. Recurring slope lineae (RSL) are narrow (0.5 to 5 meters), relatively dark markings on steep (25° to 40°) slopes; repeat images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment show them to appear and incrementally grow during warm seasons and fade in cold seasons. They extend downslope from bedrock outcrops, often associated with small channels, and hundreds of them form in some rare locations. RSL appear and lengthen in the late southern spring and summer from 48°S to 32°S latitudes favoring equator-facing slopes, which are times and places with peak surface temperatures from ~250 to 300 kelvin. Liquid brines near the surface might explain this activity, but the exact mechanism and source of water are not understood.

*Nepali time corrected