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...
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.
cost easy happened mars problem rover time wrong
Easy problem to find and fix, but it happened at just the wrong time and cost us data, and one more sol, ... Another first for the Mars Exploration Rover Project.
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The root cause of the reset remains a mystery, but I guess the occasional odd glitch is to be expected from a vehicle that's been on Mars for almost 600 sols.
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They provide a wonderful glimpse into what Mars was like in the earliest part of its history, ... It was a violent place. It was a place where meteorite impacts were happening frequently. It was a place where there volcanic explosions happening frequently. Hot stuff was raining from the skies. There was water. When rocks were deposited, water would flow through those rocks and change their chemistry. This is a glimpse into the ancient past of Mars.
mars not-sure martians
Mars is telling us something. I'm not sure what it is because It's speaking martian. But it's telling us something
taken mars earth
The thing that sets Mars apart is that it is the one planet that is enough like Earth that you can imagine life possibly once having taken hold there.
driving hang
We're also really getting the hang of driving in this terrain.
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We've got some evidence, I think, of water flowing through the rocks, and changes in chemistry, I don't think we have what any of us would consider compelling evidence for surface water yet.
discovery driven speed survival travel
Our speed of travel is driven as much by survival as by discovery.
fact frost involved level might understand wind
Wind has to be involved at some level you figure. Frost might have helped. A frost build-up on arrays could coagulate the dust...but the fact is that we don't understand it very well. But I'll take it.
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.
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Spirit has given us a wonderful window into the very ancient past of Mars. It was a violent place, a place where meteorite impacts, volcanic explosions happened frequently, where hot stuff was raining from the sky.
bite landed opportunity waiting
That was waiting to bite us. If Opportunity had landed first, it would have had the same problem.
landing technique using
We're using the same landing technique that Pathfinder used.