A Nepali undergraduate geophysics student at the University of Arizona, USA was the first to spot signs of possible flowing water during the warmer months on Mars that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced through a press conference on Thursday.

Lujendra Ojha, 21, of Mhepi, Kathmandu, who studied at Galaxy Public School till eighth grade before moving to Arizona with his geologist father Dr Tank Ojha five years ago, is co-author of a new study in the journal Science which has suggested possible presence of briny water on the Martian surface.


“We knew that he was very interested in research work but realized how big he has made it only after the world media queued up to talk to him after the NASA revelation,” said Lujendra?s elder sister Jaika Pathak over the phone from Tucson, Arizona. Born in Kathmandu, Lujendra studied at Adarsha Yoghari School at Lainchour till fourth grade and was an average student while in Nepal, Jaika said.

“But he improved after coming to the US and had topped Arizona state in SAT scores before joining the university,” Jaika, a PhD in entomology, added. Hailing from Hinnekanda, Mahadevsthan in Doti, Dr Tank Ojha was a scientist with the Department of Mines and Geology before leaving for the United States along with his family after landing a job as research scientist at the University of Arizona.

An undergraduate intern at the university?s Department of Planetary Sciences, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, Lujendra stumbled upon the discovery while working on an independent project with Professor Alfred McEwen, lead author of the study. University of Arizona researcher Colin Dundas, a collaborator in the study, was interested in gullies on Mars which may be remnants of past water activity, a CNN blog by Elizabeth Landau says, and the researchers were looking for seasonal changes in those gullies.

Scientists announced at the NASA press conference that they had detected dozens of slopes across the southern hemisphere of the planet where previously undetected dark streaks come and go with the seasons. When the planet heats up, the streaks appear and expand downhill. When it gets cold, the streaks disappear.
The Washington Post reported: “The dark streaks were initially noticed by a student at the school in images sent back by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The pixelated images were taken as far back as 2007, but with so much data coming in from space missions, they had remained unstudied. McEwan suggested that the student - geophysics junior Lujendra Ojha - examine over time the locations with streaks, and Ojha found that the streaks changed dramatically by season.”

“Lujendra has been working for me while an undergraduate student, producing digital terrain models for stereo images, and asked for an idea for an independent study. I suggested analyzing stereo pairs acquired months apart in time to look for any changes, and he found these slope flows in one location, that were present in the earlier image, then disappeared,” Professor McEwen told Republica through an email.

“I suggested he look for more of these and he did so and performed various analysis tasks such as extracting temperatures and slope profiles. He has participated in all phases of the study and made very important contributions in addition to the initial discovery,” Professor McEwen acknowledged.

"I was baffled when I first saw those features in the images after I had run them through my algorithm. We soon realized 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 meters (650 feet) in a matter of just two Earth months." MSNBC has quoted Lujendra as saying.

McEwen?s team took months of research to figure out what it could be and there should be extensive further research to even prove that this is definitely proof of water. “And from that, we can move on: OK if this is water, what are the chances that life could be in these kinds of surroundings?" the CNN blog quotes him as contemplating.

Lujendra is excited by the new discovery that may well be a significant step in establishing the possibility of life on Mars. "That would be exciting. Thats kind of like the holy grail of science: To find our neighbor, to find life on some other planet," the CNN blog quotes him as saying.

source: Khanal, Prem(2011),"Nepali first to spot water signs on Mars ", republica, 7 August 2011