Leave it to Bill Nye "the Science Guy" to turn a traditional piece of calibration equipment into a really cool, state-of-the-art scientific instrument. As he was looking over the designs for instruments to be carried aboard NASA's 2001 Mars Surveyor Lander.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has designated a 13-member national consortium as the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN), creating the world's largest and most accessible nanoscale laboratory. The consortium will enable university students and researchers, as well as scientists from corporate and government laboratories, to have open access to resources they need for studying molecular and higher length-scale materials and processes and applying them in a variety of structures, devices and systems. Named to lead NNIN is Sandip Tiwari, director of the NSF-funded Cornell Nanoscale Facility (CNF), a national user facility on the Cornell campus. NSF funding to the new network is expected to be $70-million or higher for five years, beginning in January 2004, with the possibility of a five-year renewal. (December 22, 2003)
Steven Squyres, the principal investigator for the science instruments aboard the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers, juggles his commitments to the four space missions he is actively involved in, as well as to his teaching and advising duties.
PASADENA, Calif. -- The Cornell University-developed, mast-mounted panoramic camera, called the Pancam, on board the rovers Spirit and Opportunity will provide the clearest, most-detailed Martian landscapes ever seen. The image resolution -- equivalent to 20/20 vision for a person standing on the Martian surface -- will be three times higher than that recorded by the cameras on the Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997 or the Viking Landers in the mid-1970s.
PASADENA, Calif. -- Facelifts can sag. Botox is temporary. But modern science has a new way to return youth to weathered faces: the rock abrasion tool (RAT). If your dermatologist hasn't heard of it, ask your local Mars scientist. Billions of years of exposure to the sun, atmosphere and extremely fine Martian dust has given Mars rocks a weathered "rind," or exterior layer. The RAT, part of the science-instrument package carried by the two Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, uses a diamond-tipped robotic grinding tool to scrape away this weathered exterior, revealing a fresh surface. (December 19, 2003)
PASADENA, Calif. -- After the twin Mars Exploration Rovers bounce onto the red planet and begin touring the Martian terrain in January, onboard spectrometers and cameras will gather data and images --- and the rovers' wheels will dig holes. Working together, a Cornell University planetary geologist and a civil engineer have found a way to use the wheels to study the Martian soil by digging the dirt with a spinning wheel. "It's nice to roll over geology, but every once in a while you have to pull out a shovel, dig a hole and find out what is really underneath your feet," says Robert Sullivan, senior research associate in space sciences and a planetary geology member of the Mars mission's science team. He devised the plan with Harry Stewart, Cornell associate professor of civil engineering, and engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena. (December 19, 2003)
Steve Squyres and his colleagues on the Mars Exploration Rover science team rely heavily on the expertise of graduate students, who will work closely with them during the exploration of the Martian surface by the two rovers, Spirit and Opportunity.
An instrument aboard NASA's recently launched orbiting infrared observatory has found evidence of organic molecules in an enormously powerful galaxy some 3.25 billion light years from the Earth.
Nearly 99 percent alike in genetic makeup, chimpanzees and humans might be even more similar were it not for what researchers call "lifestyle" changes in the 6 million years that separate us from a common ancestor.