NASA is about to announce an exciting new discovery about the Moon. This “Moon mystery” is something that’s been speculated about all weekend, and on Monday we’ll finally discover what it is.

It would appear to be something that could help NASA’s planned crewed landings on the Moon—which suggests it may relate to water, or water vapor—that could be used during lunar exploration.

That’s because it’s a discovery by NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a “flying telescope” that focuses on making discoveries about the atmosphere of planets and moons.

It’s scheduled for Monday, October 26, 2020, at 16:00 UTC, which is 16:00 GMT, 17:00 CET, 12:00 (midday) EDT and 09:00 PDT.

Participants will include:

Paul Hertz, Astrophysics division director at NASA Headquarters, Washington
Jacob Bleacher, chief exploration scientist for the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters
Casey Honniball, postdoctoral fellow at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
Naseem Rangwala, project scientist for the SOFIA mission, NASA’s Ames Research Center, Silicon Valley, California

What do we know about the announcement?

All NASA has said so far is that the new discovery “contributes to NASA’s efforts to learn about the Moon in support of deep space exploration.”

NASA also stated that understanding the science of the Moon also helps piece together the broader history of the inner Solar System.

ASA is going back to the Moon. Having last sent astronauts in 1972, its forthcoming Artemis program, the agency will send the first woman and next man to the lunar surface in 2024.

Artemis is being trailed as a way for NASA to prepare for human exploration of Mars as early as the 2030s.

The Artemis schedule looks like this:

November 2021: Artemis-I – the trail-blazer.
2023: Artemis-II – the first crewed lunar flyby of the 21st century at the Moon’s south pole, where there’s known to be ice-water.
October 2024: Artemis-III – the first crewedMoon landing since 1972.

Further Artemis missions each year through 2030 will help build the Lunar Gateway’s habitation module and descend a further three times to the surface of the Moon (Artemis V, VI and either VII or VIII).