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...
beautiful believe signature taken truly
We have taken a beautiful 360-degree panorama, which I believe is going to be truly one of the signature accomplishments of this mission.
barely driving exposed found gotten ground hard leave parts region stuff summit
What we have found once we've gotten up into the summit region...the driving has gotten very, very good. The ground is hard here. There is not a lot of fine-grain stuff around. What there is piled up in drifts. This is because the summit region is exposed to the wind; it's very windy. In some parts of the summit region, we barely leave tracks.
bedrock head heading home looking toward
For Spirit, we're going to head down the hill, looking for bedrock and heading toward Home Plate,
priority reach safe winter
For Spirit, the priority has been to reach a safe winter haven.
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.
belief regarding
I don't have a belief regarding that question.
capability created display edge five high homes images laptop nobody screen standing stories
Nobody has the display capability in their homes you'd need to really see these images in all their grandeur. One panorama we created was 4,000 pixels high and 24,000 pixels around, and your laptop just can't display that. But on an IMAX screen five stories tall, you're standing on the edge of the crater. You're there.
last layer speaks water
One possibility is that it's the last layer to form. It speaks to yet another water episode.
dark dealing mystery origin time
One mystery weve been dealing with for a long time is the origin of the little dark cobbles that we occasionally see out on the plains,
dark dealing mystery origin time
One mystery we've been dealing with for a long time is the origin of the little dark 'cobbles' that we occasionally see out on the plains.
amount huge respect
I have a huge amount of respect for what they've accomplished,
carefully compelling deciding downhill driving experience factor finding found geology good head learn loose move offers pace respect sand slower sort stuff targets truly uphill vehicle whereas year
With respect to how long it's going to take us to get down the hill, we don't have a whole lot of experience driving this vehicle downhill -- we've been going uphill for more than a year now. We're going to have to take it carefully at first and learn as we go. I think the deciding factor is going to be how good the geology is. If we're finding geology that offers truly compelling targets (for study) as we found on the way up, then our pace is going to be a lot slower whereas if it's a lot of loose sand and that sort of thing we'll be able to move through it a lot more briskly and head to the good stuff off in the distance.
climb field figure geologist geologists hill land lay nearest robotic spirit top
What field geologists typically do - and Spirit is a robotic field geologist - is you climb to the top of the nearest hill and take a look around so you get the lay of the land and figure out where you want to go,
environment kinds rocks salt shallow
This was an inhabitable environment on Mars. This was a shallow sea. These rocks ... it's a salt flat. These are the kinds of environments that are very suitable for life.