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ZL2VAL > ROVERS 13.02.04 12:25l 114 Lines 5309 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Rovers update, Feb 12
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Sent: 040213/1045Z @:ZL2AB.#46.NZL.OC #:35740 [New Plymouth] FBB7.00g
From: ZL2VAL@ZL2AB.#46.NZL.OC
To : ROVERS@WW
NEWS RELEASE: 2004-58
February 12, 2004
Student Programs Tap Into Mars Rover Adventures
NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers are not only providing scientists a flood
of information about Mars -- including new insights today about winds --
they are also adding excitement to classrooms throughout the nation.
An assortment of programs giving students first-hand opportunities to
work with information from NASA Mars missions help young people "see
themselves as scientists in the future because they understand the
process of science," said Sheri Klug of Arizona State University, Tempe,
and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. She coordinates
NASA Mars education programs for kindergarten through high school, part
of the agency's goal to inspire the next generation of explorers.
Silver Stage High School in Silver Springs, Nev., is one of 13 schools
participating in one program that pairs selected students with
researchers on the rover missions. "I actually get the opportunity to
work with the scientists. It's really awesome!" said Shannon Theissen,
16, a Silver Stage junior.
Dr. Wendy Calvin, rover science team member from University of Nevada,
Reno, and Shannon's mentor for a week at JPL, said, "This is the real
stuff, not baby steps. The students are using the same tools we do."
Hundreds of other students from around the country participate in
programs using pictures and other information from NASA Mars orbiters,
and more than 1,000 have sent in rocks for a project to compare Earth
rocks with Mars rocks.
Meanwhile, noted Art Thompson of JPL's rover flight team, "We have two
very busy rovers on the surface of Mars." On Wednesday, Spirit broke its
own record set earlier in the week for the longest one-day drive on
Mars. The rover added 24.4 meters (80 feet) to its odometer, bringing
the total to 57.4 meters (188 feet) and ending its day near a cluster of
rocks dubbed "Stone Council."
In coming weeks, scientists and engineers plan for Spirit to drive up to
the rim of a crater dubbed "Bonneville," still more than two
football-field lengths away, in hopes of peering inside and seeing rock
layers that could tell the geologic history and the potential role of
water at the Gusev site.
Opportunity drove Friday morning to the fourth counterclockwise position
in its survey of a rock outcrop along the inner slope of the crater in
which it landed. Based on the survey, scientists will choose a small
number of locations on the outcrop to come back to for more thorough
examination later. The flight team has learned to compensate for wheel
slippage in the soil on the slope. "When we attempt to drive up the
slope we intentionally overdrive, and when we drive down a slope we
intentionally underdrive," Thompson said.
Both rovers have used an infrared sensing instrument called the
miniature thermal emission spectrometer to study the sky, as well as the
ground. These atmospheric observations are revealing rapid temperature
changes in the lower atmosphere. In mid-morning, the air temperature at
about the height of an eight-story building swings up and down by
several degrees within a minute.
"Warmer and colder blobs of air are intermittently passing over the
rover," said Dr. Don Banfield, a rover science team collaborator from
Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. "We're watching the overturning of the
atmosphere as it's warming up in the morning." Rising warmer air carries
heat to upper layers of the atmosphere. Observing the details of these
changes helps scientists improve their models for understanding Mars'
winds.
Better understanding of Mars' winds is important not only for the design
of future landings on the planet, but also for interpreting some
features on the surface. "We've been talking a lot about water on Mars
in the past, but wind is currently the important agent of change on
Mars," Banfield said.
Microscopic images indicate that windblown sand is eroding the outcrop
that Opportunity is studying. Dr. Mark Lemmon, science team member from
Texas A&M University, College Station, said that taking a series of
images with that instrument at slightly different distances from the
target allows creation of a three-dimensional view. "We're gathering as
much information about the things we're looking at as we possibly can,"
he said.
The main task for both rovers in coming weeks and months is to explore
for evidence in rocks and soils about whether the landing-site areas
ever had environments that were watery and possibly suitable for
sustaining life. JPL, a division of the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for
NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Images and additional
information about the project are available from JPL at:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov and from Cornell University at:
http://athena.cornell.edu
Information about NASA school projects is available at:
http://education.nasa.gov
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73 de Alan, (Sysop ZL2AB).
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