Lately I’ve been helping out with the tours that we give of our operations center (HiROC) lobby and some public talks. Depending on the audience, we usually tell them a little bit about the HiRISE camera, its capabilities, and the MRO mission in general. We also talk about what we personally do at the operations center. The full-scale model of the camera and the “HiWall” are really nice exhibits for visitors. The highlight is usually when we show off what HiRISE has accomplished: color images, 3-D anaglyphs (everyone likes wearing those glasses!), and the recent addition of the fly-through movies has been very popular.

My favorite part is when people have questions for us – even when I don’t know the answers. Because, honestly, that’s what science is – we don’t always have the answers, but that’s what makes it exciting! It’s also fun to find out which aspects of the mission inspire other people, and I get a different perspective on what they think is interesting (versus just what I think is interesting!). Some of the questions are really good, too! We were talking with some middle-school students from El Paso, Texas, and their questions were so astute. One girl asked, “Does Mars have plate tectonics?” Another good question was, “How do we know about the interior of Mars?” These are great questions, and HiRISE is helping scientists to answer these and other questions, along with data from many other instruments studying Mars.

In case you were curious about these particular questions, like these kids were, here are some short answers and references for more information:
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On Thursday, April 19, 2007 I presented “HiRISE: The People’s Camera” at the Prescott Public Library in Prescott, Arizona. The library and the Prescott Astronomy Club put together a wonderful sequence of talks and star parties as part of International Astronomy Week.

My presentation went well. For some reason I was especially nervous right before the talk, but immediately after I started my nervousness went away, most likely because my hosts and the audience were so receptive. I am not sure how many people attended, but the room was full. At the end of the presentation there were a lot of great questions from the audience, including basic questions about Mars, questions about our current understanding of Mars, questions about HiRISE and its capabilities, and questions about the future of space exploration. I put my foot in my mouth only once, when I referred to the Deep Space Network (DSN) as “antiquated”. A former JPL engineer in the audience politely and informatively corrected my word choice.

A couple weeks before the talk we snail mailed two color printouts of PSP_001336_1560 – “Delta in Eberswalde” – to Prescott for framing. One image is the entire black-and-white image with central color swath, and the other is a zoomed-in color subscene. During setup prior to the presentation, the frame shop delivered the images, and they had done a fantastic framing job! People were naturally drawn to the images before and after the presentation and I answered lots of questions about them.

I promised I would place the PowerPoint presentation online, and here it is. The PowerPoint presentation file is about 22 MB in size. I have notes in the notes section of the slides, including information about the images used as well as their URLs. I want to especially thank Stuart Heggie for allowing me to use his beautiful astrophotography image “Conjunction of Moon, Venus and Mars – Dec 1 2002“. His image helped me to make a point about the history of Mars observation.

Thank you to my hosts, including Meghan and Douglas, and everyone who attend a delicious pre-presentation pizza dinner, including the current and former presidents of the Prescott Astronomy Club and their spouses, the library’s Adult Services Director, and the talented graphic designer of many of their brochures and other materials (including a t-shirt I will take a picture of soon). The audience deserves my thanks because they had such great questions and were incredibly good-natured. Thank you, everyone!