Greetings From... Mars!

I am happy to announce that I've survived my first week out here at the JPL! Looking back, these past seven days have flown right past me, although each day was full - I mean FULL - of learning. My mentor/ project supervisor is a Martian genius... I swear he knows the surface of Mars better than Earth!

I work on the eighth floor of an exensive research building at the JPL. My day is spent in the Lab, where I get to play with a super-fast (and massive) Mac computer. The computer includes two of the largest desktop screens I have ever seen, and they occupy my entire line of sight... they are really big! Unfortunately there are no windows in the Lab and I usually work alone, except when my supervisors assign me more tasks/ help me navigate through the vast computer systems.

So far, the majority of my work this week contributes to the research efforts of my mentor. I've had several interesting - and sometimes tedious - assignments involving scanning through countless HiRISE images in order to locate an impact crater cluster of interest. Once I've located them on a 6km x 20km high resolution image, I measure their individual and effective diameters. This is easy because all I have to do is zoom to the maximum scale, and count each pixel across the craters. Each HiRISE image captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has a resolution of 23 cm per pixel. It's amazing what we can see on the surface... sorry, no aliens - just really cool geologic features and rocks!

The second project I was just trained to work on involves the four potential landing sites for the Mars Science Laboratory rover, scheduled for take-off in late 2011. Our team is responsible for identifying hazards in each of these four sites. The primary dangers include large, angular boulders, steep hill slopes, and weak dust ground cover, all of which jeopardize the 1.6 billion dollar project. I was recently trained to work with a program designed for MATLAB, which automatically identifies rocks on the surface of these landing sites.

The program measures their relative diameters based upon their shadows. My task is to identify the false positives, or mistaken rocks, that the program identifies. For example, the software might identify a hill or scarp as a rock, and it's my job to re-classify those features. Although hills, thick dust, and scarps are still potentially hazardous to the MSL rover, we need to keep them separate from the rocks.

The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL for short) rover is super awesome. It's about the size of a Voltzwagon Beetle, and is fully equipped with the most advanced technologies. The neatest feature, in my opinion, is a laser that shoots out of it's head. It is aimed at a rock, and depending on the color of flame that results, it's chemical and minerologic composition can be identified. Above is a photo with my new best friend.

I suppose I'll end this week with a two-thumbs-up for my internship this spring. Even though this week was a teensy bit daunting, I'm learning so much every day. The most valuable thing in the world is knowledge, and I am more than delighted to share mine with you!

Happy Week!