NASA’s Monday announcement that Mars appears to have flowing streams of salty water might not be a cosmic conspiracy to boost ticket sales, as some have asserted on social media, but the possible finding is good news for Ridley Scott’s The Martian.
The announcement has a lot of people talking about the film, which is set to premiere this Friday and stars Matt Damon as a stranded astronaut who must find, among other things, a source of water to survive.
Writing at Yahoo News, Dylan Stabelford posed the question late Monday, “Did NASA time its Mars announcement to coincide with the film’s release?”
The journalist took a shot at answering his own question, writing, “It would be a bit hard to imagine the space agency sitting on major Mars news in order for it to collide with a Hollywood movie,” but just for good measure, Yahoo reached out to NASA for comment.
“No, the timing was dictated by the publication of the Nature Geoscience article, which was released today,” agency spokeswoman Laurie Cantillo said on Monday.
Still, the movie’s media team is enjoying the free press brought on by the impeccable timing of the news:
And despite Cantillo’s statement, some refuse to buy that NASA and Hollywood aren’t in bed together on this one:
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