Water on Mars: From a wannabe rockstar to Mars tamer

For a boy who once dreamt of setting out on a
world tour with his guitar, 21-year-old Nepali
high school student at the University of Arizona
Lujendra Ojha has rocked the world—not with
his guitar this time, but with his moving discovery
which, according to scientists at NASA, carries
the potential for raising the curtain from the Mars
mystery. Ojha, originally from Kathmandu, has
spotted signs of possible saltwater flow on Mars.
The discovery was announced on Aug 4 at the
space agency’s headquarters in Washington. His
recently published study in a journal titled Science
suggests that there is liquid water during warmer
seasons on Mars. A report published in CNN on
Aug 5 after the discovery says, “Ojha has not cracked those mysteries yet, but he did discover something else otherworldly: possible flows of saltwater on Mars.”
“I was baffled when I first saw those features in the images after I had run them through my algorithm,” said Ojha. “We soon realised they were different from slope streaks that had been observed before. These are highly seasonal, and we observed some of them had grown by more than 200 metres in a matter of just two Earth months.”“When I first saw them, I had no idea what they were. I thought they were just streaks made by dust or something similar. It was a lucky accident,” he added.

Majority govt not Baburam’s cup of tea

 He said his top priority was a national consensus
government. The Maoist Central Committee meeting
on July 23 had endorsed Bhattarai’s name as the
party’s official prime ministerial candidate. However,
leaders from the party chairman camp say Bhattarai
should become the prime minister of a majority
government if efforts to form a consensus government
fails.  gainst the main opposition Nepali Congress’
demand that it should lead a new government, Bhattarai
said Congress was slowly realising that only a government
lead by the Maoist party can push peace and constitution
writing processes. He also said that Prime Minister Jhala Nath Khanal’s resignation will help move ahead on peace, constitution and new government formation. “A national consensus government can be formed only after Khanal resigns in accordance with the five-point understanding.”  In another context, he said some forces were hatching plots to dissolve the Constituent Assembly.


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