21 min
These Wheels are Made for Roving: Exploring the Surface of Mars with Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity Nerd Nite
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- Society & Culture
When the Spirit and Opportunity rovers landed in 2004 they didn’t find any Tharks or H.G. Wellsian tentacled creatures
with leathery skin, but they did find surprising evidence of water.
Both rovers vastly exceeded their nominal missions and were joined on
Mars by the larger Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity in 2012. In this
episode, Senior Research Scientist and NASA Participating Scientist Bill
Farrand from the Space Science Institute in Boulder, CO tells us how
the rovers have helped to transform our view of the surface of Mars from
a barren, dead volcanic planet to one that was once much like the Earth
with flowing ground and surface waters and stunning scenic vistas. This presentation was given at Nerd Nite Denver in December 2015. Farrand is a senior research scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder,
Colorado. He has a B.A. in Geology from Franklin & Marshall College
and a M.S. and Ph.D. in the Geosciences from the University of Arizona.
He has worked extensively in terrestrial remote sensing as well as in
the remote sensing of Mars and of the Moon. In the terrestrial remote
sensing field, Bill has worked extensively with data from airborne
hyperspectral remote sensing systems for both commercial and government
programs. Bill has been a Participating Scientist on NASA’s Mars
Exploration Rover (MER) Mission since 2002. Bill has worked extensively
with multispectral Pancam data from both the Spirit and Opportunity
rovers looking at the multispectral reflectance of rocks viewed by the
rovers at the Columbia Hills of Gusev crater and on the plains and
craters of Meridiani Planum. He is also involved in several other
projects examining terrestrial analogues of Martian surface materials,
working with orbital remote sensing data of Mars, and examining the
hyperspectral reflectance of dry and ephemeral lakes. In his free time,
Bill is an avid rock climber and also enjoys skiing, hiking, taking his
dogs on walks, and pursuing useless TV and movie trivia.
When the Spirit and Opportunity rovers landed in 2004 they didn’t find any Tharks or H.G. Wellsian tentacled creatures
with leathery skin, but they did find surprising evidence of water.
Both rovers vastly exceeded their nominal missions and were joined on
Mars by the larger Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity in 2012. In this
episode, Senior Research Scientist and NASA Participating Scientist Bill
Farrand from the Space Science Institute in Boulder, CO tells us how
the rovers have helped to transform our view of the surface of Mars from
a barren, dead volcanic planet to one that was once much like the Earth
with flowing ground and surface waters and stunning scenic vistas. This presentation was given at Nerd Nite Denver in December 2015. Farrand is a senior research scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder,
Colorado. He has a B.A. in Geology from Franklin & Marshall College
and a M.S. and Ph.D. in the Geosciences from the University of Arizona.
He has worked extensively in terrestrial remote sensing as well as in
the remote sensing of Mars and of the Moon. In the terrestrial remote
sensing field, Bill has worked extensively with data from airborne
hyperspectral remote sensing systems for both commercial and government
programs. Bill has been a Participating Scientist on NASA’s Mars
Exploration Rover (MER) Mission since 2002. Bill has worked extensively
with multispectral Pancam data from both the Spirit and Opportunity
rovers looking at the multispectral reflectance of rocks viewed by the
rovers at the Columbia Hills of Gusev crater and on the plains and
craters of Meridiani Planum. He is also involved in several other
projects examining terrestrial analogues of Martian surface materials,
working with orbital remote sensing data of Mars, and examining the
hyperspectral reflectance of dry and ephemeral lakes. In his free time,
Bill is an avid rock climber and also enjoys skiing, hiking, taking his
dogs on walks, and pursuing useless TV and movie trivia.
21 min