This challenge is brought to you by MRO’s High
Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera team in
collaboration with NASA Quest. The HiRISE camera, now orbiting
Mars onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, is helping NASA
to search for signs of past and present water on Mars. Understanding
the history of water on Mars helps scientists understand if there
is now or ever has been life on Mars.
Scientists have argued for water on Mars since
the first Viking images of Mars were returned nearly 30 years ago. Since
then, Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey have collected more
images; now the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE)
is using a camera attached to a very powerful telescope to look
down on the surface of Mars.
HiRISE is taking photos of Mars that are higher in resolution (~30cm/pixel),
showing more detail, than any previous images. Objects as small
as a meter across, approximately the size of a teacher’s desk,
can be seen in the HiRISE images. This allows HiRISE to find small
features like interior channels, streambed features, and layering. Since
the HiRISE camera is “zoomed in” to look at very small regions
of Mars, it will only be able to image about 2% of the surface of the
planet. Thus each image has to count!
You are challenged to help choose some regions of Mars for HiRISE to
image that probably contained water at the surface in the past. The
HiRISE team will pick several suggestions and image them with the camera
in the coming months. Your team will represent the first people
on Earth to see the resulting image and will have the chance to search
for signs of water in the image.
You can choose areas within a valley system or outflow channel (like
the source region or other interesting spot on the floor or walls) or
obtain a close-up of gullies imaged from past missions. You can
also choose to re-image an interesting site already seen in a HiRISE
image to look for any changes that may indicate present geologic activity.
To increase your chances of getting your image picked sooner rather
than later, here are a few tips:
- Don’t pick a dusty area. A
large fraction of the planet is covered in dust, and a lot of dust means
that the surface features are hidden.
- Pick a location either
in the southern hemisphere or south of the mid-latitudes in the northern
hemisphere. We are coming up on Mars winter in the northern hemisphere,
and it will be too dark to take good images far to the north.
- Have a well thought out hypothesis for selecting this target location.
Unfortunately, due to time constraints of this first challenge, only
a few of the suggestions will be taken during this semester, and be analyzed
by school teams in time for the final webcast in May. Very few
images can be taken at any given time, and the camera is restricted by
its orbital path and the time of year. In addition, HiRISE is one of
several instruments on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that also
need to collect data and are allocated part of the data downlink volume.
However, we will continue to release classroom suggested images on the
HiRISE website each week, so even if your target is not selected this
round, keep checking the website! You’ll also be able to see what
other school groups have suggested and help in the analysis of those
sites! We want all participating classes to analyze their favorite returned
HiRISE image, whether or not the actually suggested it, and submit a
report on their analysis.
See the calendar below for
planning purposes. Prepare for the Challenge with some background
references to learn about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Martian
terrain options. Grade-specific
Teacher's Guides and Student Activity Books, tutorials, and other helpful
information are available in .pdf format from the HiRISE
Learning and Activity Center. To browse the released HiRISE
images and for additional information about HiRISE, visit the main
HiRISE website at http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/hirise.
Begin preparation, understanding:
- What the Mars HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment)
- How is High Resolution photography going to affect what we
are able to see?
- What makes one site better than another in determining where
water/life may have existed in the past?
- Begin to form your
opinion of where you would like to look.
- Explore the Clickworkers to learn to recognize geologic features
images and help build image feature databases for the
Guides and Activity Books are available online in .pdf format.)
See also links to other online resources for
of the webcast with transcript
Slides in .pdf format
- Meet the team.
- Learn how to
become a pilot tester of HiWeb
- Learn how to use "HiWeb" site
to explore options and present your preference.
- Ask questions of our experts to help you in your selection.
April 7, 2007
When you have formed an hypothesis
and are ready to request and support your selection of that site,
enter your information at the HiWeb site http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/HiRISE/hiweb/marsbrowser/index.html
(you should have received a password by email after you registered)
|Month of April
With the options that best coordinate
with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's course, images were
taken of 9 sites. As images are available they open
to all registered participants
It's not to late to register and
participate in the fun of analyzing the returned student-suggested
images. You can pick a HiRISE image to analyze,
submit a brief report on it and help write image captions.
Student images will are open only to those who register until
the images have been officially released on the main HiRISE site....
May 30, 2007
Present your analysis of the
||Experts will evaluate submissions
Final results: Experts will evaluate
Archive of the webcast with transcript
Slides in .pdf format
Watch as images continue to come in!