Phil Christensen
Phil Christensen
Philip Russel Christensen is a geologist whose research interests focus on the composition, physical properties, processes, and morphology of planetary surfaces, with an emphasis on Mars and the Earth. He is currently a Regents' Professor and the Ed and Helen Korrick Professor of Geological Sciences at Arizona State University...
alien mars mysterious space
The idea is to look at Mars and not think of it as a mysterious alien place.
step studies time
The time has come to take Martian studies a step further?and deeper.
building planning
It doesn't get any better than this. Having one there, one we're building and one we're planning for.
afford maybe
Maybe we can't afford not to have redundancy.
call mother
We call them the mother lode of hematite,
begin biggest coming dust early heading mars months season spell storms until
The biggest dust storms don't usually begin until one or two months after perihelion, ... This one coming so early in the season makes me think Mars is heading for a spell of big dust storms.
considered fairly none number spacecraft
It's getting to be a fairly old spacecraft and it's been having a number of issues; none of them are considered life-threatening,
couple self
It's completely self-sterilizing. We've made it through the first couple of rounds.
For us, it's a big deal. We just doubled our probability of succeeding.
chance eggs higher instead second vehicle work
Instead of all our eggs and 10 years of work in one basket, we have a second vehicle and a much higher chance of success.
aim areas evidence layers middle snow thor
In many areas of Mars' middle latitudes, we see tantalizing evidence of dust-covered layers of snow or ice. THOR will aim for this material.
areas exploring interested mars snow
I'm interested in exploring mid-latitude areas of Mars that look like they're made of snow and ice.
climate mars models orbit predict spin tilt
The climate models predict that as the orbit of Mars evolves, the tilt of its spin axis changes.