Michael Malin, a world- renowned geomorphologist and Mars expert, will present a talk at Cornell University Oct. 13 on the latest discoveries made by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft.

Malin's talk, hosted by the Cornell astronomy department, is free and open to the public. Titled "The New Mars: Observations from the Mars Global Surveyor Camera," the talk will be at 4 30 p.m. in Schwartz Auditorium of Rockefeller Hall. Malin will describe the new Mars being revealed by the Mars Observer Camera (MOC) as a planet of perplexing geologic complexity.

The speaker is founder and president of Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, the company responsible for building and operating MOC. The camera is providing views of the Martian surface at resolutions approaching a few yards as the Global Surveyor spacecraft, which was launched in 1996, continues to orbit the planet.

He is principal investigator on the downward-looking camera, called the descent imager, aboard the Mars Polar Lander, scheduled to touch down on the planet's surface Dec. 3. Cornell astronomers Joseph Veverka, Steven Squyres and Peter Thomas are co-investigators on the descent imager program.

Malin, the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship in 1987, earned his doctorate at the California Institute of Technology. He was a member of the technical staff at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a professor at Arizona State University before founding Malin Space Science Systems in 1990.

His past NASA research included photogeological studies by the Mars Viking orbiter and lander, the Voyager spacecraft imaging of satellites of Jupiter and Saturn, and the Pioneer spacecraft images of Venus.