Steve Squyres
Steve Squyres
Steven W. Squyresis the James A. Weeks Professor of Physical Sciences at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. His research area is in planetary sciences, with a focus on large solid bodies in the solar system such as the terrestrial planets and the moons of the Jovian planets. Squyres is principal investigator of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission. He is the recipient of the 2004 Carl Sagan Memorial Award and the 2009 Carl Sagan Medal for Excellence in Communication in...
busy
We'll be busy here for a long time.
hope survive winter
We hope to survive another winter on Mars.
dipping geology says similar textures
It's very similar in composition, with very similar textures when you look at it with a microscope, but it's dipping in all different directions. What it says is that the geology around here is pretty complicated.
darker hard outer parts rock shells
These look like hard outer shells on some parts of some outcrops, and they're darker and a little redder than the rock that they encrust.
darker hard outer parts rock shells
These look like hard outer shells on some parts of some outcrops, and theyre darker and a little redder than the rock that they encrust,
conjecture data gotten point purely table until
But that's purely conjecture at this point à a working hypothesis. Everything is on the table until we've gotten more data down.
image sheer terms
In terms of sheer scenic grandeur, it is the most spectacular image we've taken. It's like nothing else on Mars.
anniversary entire mars seen year
I actually see the Mars year anniversary as being more significant, ... We will have seen Mars over an entire seasonal cycle.
bedrock head heading home looking toward
For Spirit, we're going to head down the hill, looking for bedrock and heading toward Home Plate,
bedrock bit decision drive mostly north onto start swing terrain western
We can see most of the crater from where we are right now, and we've made the decision that we're going to traverse around it on its western side. We're actually going to start the drive around the crater by going north a little bit ... to get onto terrain that's mostly bedrock ... before we swing west.
curious figure
We've been very curious to figure out what they are.
assume dirty solar stay
We have to assume the worst...that the solar panels are going to stay dirty and just get dirtier.
terms
We're not going to take any risks. It's a big crater in terms of diameter, but really shallow. It's nothing like Endurance.
carry climb head hill husband summit
We still want to get to the summit of Husband Hill and then head down into the 'Inner Basin' on the other side. But now we have more flexibility in how we carry out the plan. Before, it was climb or die.