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The Battalion
Page 3 • Wednesday, February 25, 2004
Red rover
Wfs Lemmon to speak about NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission
By Amelia Williamson
THE BATTALION
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aotball,'
ers
This Saturday, Mark Lemmon of the Texas A&M Department of
itmospheric Sciences will present the pictures taken by the Mars
livers, Spirit and Opportunity. Lemmon is part of NASA’s Mars
Rover Mission team and will discuss the accomplish-
itsofthe Mars rovers and display 3-D pictures of the Mars’ sur-
the audience will get to view through 3-D goggles. The
ntation will be held in Rudder Auditorium at 3 p.m.
Lemmon is an atmospheric scientist on the Mars Rover Team and
lies the dust in the martian atmosphere to help determine the his-
of water on Mars. He also works on the camera team.
IVe monitor (the cameras) as they send data back to make sure
leyhave no problems,” Lemmon said. “And we take the raw, black-
ud-white pictures and generate the color panoramic pictures for
lie release."
The goal of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission is to “seek to
(ermine the history of climate and water at two sites on Mars
Preconditions may once have been favorable to life,” according
(NASA’s Mars Web site. One of the two Mars rovers. Spirit, land-
Jan. 3, 2004. and the other. Opportunity, landed on Jan. 25,
The two rovers are identical and only differ in the landing site,
it landed in the Gusev crater, which is a large basin that may
»e been filled with water at one point.
“(Spirit has) scientific instruments that are characterizing the
tmistry and mineralogy of the rocks (in the crater) in hope of
Bring into Gusev’s history,” Lemmon said.
Bystudyingthe formation of rocks in the Gusev crater, scientists
adetennine if the crater was once a martian lake.
“We are looking at rocks right where they formed, rather than
mstream or where they got blown by asteroid impacts,”
mmon said. “We’ve never seen such a thing on another planet
i this close.”
Opportunity landed in Meridiani Planum, an area consisting of
iisi plains that contain samples of gray hematite. Scientists are
trested in studying the composition of these rocks because gray
taatiteusually forms in areas where there is liquid water.
The instruments on (Opportunity) can identify not only the
latite,but also other minerals that will (help) us decide whether
taterplayeda role (in the formation of the hematite) or whether
the hematite was formed by volcanoes (on the) desert world,”
Lemmon said.
I Spirit and Opportunity each carry five scientific instruments and
Courtesy of • NASA/|PL/OSO/CORNELL
This image is a traverse map, illustrating Spirit's path over the last 45 sols (Martian days). When the rover reached the point called "Laguna Hollow,"
it had driven 131 meters (430 feet) from Columbia Memorial Station (the landing point). Spirit has already conducted numerous experiments on
the surface of Mars using the instruments on its arm: the Moessbauer spectrometer, the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer and the microscopic
imager. Spirit is about halfway to the edge of the crater dubbed "Bonneville."
an abrasion tool, according to NASA’s Mars Web site. The panoram
ic cameras on the rovers take pictures of the surrounding terrain in
search of water and optimal areas to explore soil and rock samples.
The Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer is an instrument
on each rover that scans the area around the rover in infrared and
determines the types and amounts of minerals on the martian sur
face, focusing on minerals that usually form near water, according
to NASA’s Mars Web site.
The Mossbauer Spectrometer on board the rovers locates miner
als that contain iron by probing rock and soil samples. According to
NASA’s Mars Web site, this will help scientists figure out if water
aided in the formation of the minerals in the martian rocks and soil.
The Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer evaluates rock and soil
samples to determine the concentration of major elements in them.
This allows scientists to figure out how the soil and rocks have been
altered over time, according to NASA's Mars Web site.
The final instrument on the rovers is the Microscopic Imager that
examines the minute details on rock and soil samples to determine
how they were formed.
The rock abrasion tool on the arm of the rovers is what grinds
away the surface of the rocks on the martian surface to expose their
interiors so scientists can study them, according to NASA.
NASA scientists, such as Lemmon, strive to utilize every minute
of sunlight on Mars. The rovers are powered by the sun, so the
See Rover on page 4
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