On this NPR Science Friday episode, HiRISE Principal Investigator Alfred McEwen and M.I.T. planetary geophysicist Maria Zuber discuss new results that illuminate the story of water on Mars with host Ira Flatow.

Also, available free on iTunes, are a collection of videos from the Phoenix Mission’s Open House, highlighting the University of Arizona’s Mars-related projects including UofA speakers McEwen, Phoenix P.I. Peter Smith, GRS and TEGA P.I. William Boynton, and planetary geologist Vic Baker.

Finally, during last week’s UofA football game, our marching band played a tribute to Mars and in particular Phoenix with a little ditty written by band director Jay Rees. I don’t know if a recording of the performance is available online, but here’s a snippet of the song:

“Follow the water” is NASA’s song,
UA’s happy to sing along.
We shall see what we shall see.
We might find biology!

Tomorrow is the first launch opportunity for our sister mission, Phoenix. We don’t have a lot of day-to-day interaction with the Phoenix project, because their building is located a ways off-campus. It’s hard not to feel some camaraderie with them, though. Not only did HiRISE image a lot of possible landing sites, the mission is based right here in our department at the U of A.

If you aren’t super-excited about Phoenix yet, just try and not get excited by this awesome trailer they put together! (Alternate formats are available here, and on youtube, of course.) I was completely enthralled. It’s got everything — action, suspense, an emotional back-story, a totally Hollywood time-lapse mega-zoom to a night launch scene, and a rockin’ soundtrack!

The whole Phoenix website is fabulous, too, if you haven’t seen it yet.

Launches are risky times, and we’re all nervous and excited for Phoenix. All our best wishes go with it as it leaves this planet!

I thought I’d offer a few more words as to what is done with images at HiROC. Validation has been mentioned in the blog, and I’d like to explain a bit more about that. I’ve been involved in writing the primary validation tool, HiVali, and I will be the primary student validator for the next month. (The regular student validators are from out of state, and are going home for the Christmas holidays. I’m from around here, and offered my services to look at pretty pictures from Mars all day;-))

(more…)