
Tomorrow marks 5 years since the Curiosity rover's dramatic landing on the red planet! The rover’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite onboard Curiosity is the most complicated instrument NASA has ever sent to another planet. SAM is designed to measure the composition of the atmosphere and solid samples inside Gale Crater on Mars, and help scientists assess the habitability (could a certain place support life?) of environments recorded in in rocks in Gale Crater. The SAM team has made many amazing discoveries, including finding evidence of a habitable environment – a place that life (think tiny microorganisms, not dinosaurs) could have survived if it had been in that spot on Mars, millions of years ago. SAM also detected the first organics (building blocks of life) on Mars, known to have originated on this planet.
We’re a group of scientists and engineers from the SAM team, ready to answer your questions about Mars and SAM. We’ll be online from 1:00 to 2:00 pm EST and we will sign our answers. Ask us anything!
Paul Mahaffy, SAM Principle Investigator, Director of Solar System Exploration Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Charles Malespin, SAM Deputy Principle Investigator, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Jen Stern, Planetary Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
James Lewis, Postdoctoral Fellow, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Brad Sutter, Planetary Scientist, NASA Johnson Space Flight Center
Greg Flesch, Instrument Engineer, NASA Jet Propulsion Lab
Peter Martin, PhD student, CalTech/NASA Jet Propulsion Lab
Doug Archer, Planetary Scientist/NASA Johnson Space Center
No comments:
Post a Comment