Monday, November 30, 2015

Georgia Tech Student Leads Study That Finds Flowing Water on Mars


Antoine Chaya holds the position of senior director of strategic accounts for Oracle Corporation. Prior to his employment with Oracle, Antoine Chaya graduated with a PhD in information technology management from the Georgia Institute of Technology. The Georgia Institute of Technology recently made headlines when a PhD candidate from the school led a study that enabled NASA to establish evidence for the presence of flowing water on Mars.

Lujendra Ojha established the possibility of flowing water on Mars as an undergraduate at the University of Arizona. After analyzing images obtained through the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment equipment, Ojha noticed lineated signatures left by hydrated salts. During the planet’s warm seasons, these signatures are present, but in the cold seasons, they disappear. This led Ojha, NASA, and other scientists working on the study to conclude that salt water flows on Mars perennially.

With this discovery, Georgia Tech aims to develop technologies that will help put humans on Mars, and to create instruments that could assist in determining the presence of life.