For the first time ever, scientists confirmed the existence of liquid water currently existing on Mars' surface.

According to NBC News, a team of NASA officials revealed the finding at a surprise press event Monday morning from the space agency's Washington D.C. headquarters. The groundbreaking discovery came courtesy of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and the spacecraft's imaging spectrometer.

"Our quest on Mars has been to 'follow the water,' in our search for life in the universe, and now we have convincing science that validates what we've long suspected," John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, said in a news release. "This is a significant development, as it appears to confirm that water - albeit briny - is flowing today on the surface of Mars."

Lujendra Ojha of the Georgia Institute of Technology, served as the lead author of a study on the matter published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience.

"We found the hydrated salts only when the seasonal features were widest, which suggests that either the dark streaks themselves or a process that forms them is the source of the hydration. In either case, the detection of hydrated salts on these slopes means that water plays a vital role in the formation of these streaks," Ojha said in the release.

With its Curiosity Rover, NASA has previously discovered evidence of water once existing on Mars' surface. In fact, the Red Planet was once likely covered in massive bodies of water like the Earth and its oceans.

"When most people talk about water on Mars, they're usually talking about ancient water or frozen water," he said. "Now we know there's more to the story. This is the first spectral detection that unambiguously supports our liquid water-formation hypotheses for RSL."