As principal investigator for the Mars Exploration Rover Project, one of NASA‘s most successful programs, Squyres is responsible for all of the scientific activities of the twin robots Opportunity and Spirit.
Squyres, a professor of astronomy at Cornell University, will talk about the possibility of water on Mars and the study of its geology, what it’s like to live on “Mars time” and the ups and downs of the project; most recently, the nationally announced budget cuts that were changed a day later.
He is the author of Roving Mars: Spirit, Opportunity, and the Exploration of the Red Planet and one of the people (with some help from his brother, Academy-nominated film editor Tim Squyres) involved in the IMAX production Roving Mars.
Squyres has participated in a number of planetary spaceflight missions. From 1978 to 1981, he was an associate of the Voyager imaging science team, participating in analysis of imaging data from the encounters with Jupiter and Saturn. He was a radar investigator on the Magellan mission to Venus, a member of the Mars Observer gamma-ray spectrometer flight investigation team, and a co-investigator on the Russian Mars 1996 mission. He is a member of the Gamma-Ray Spectrometer Flight Investigation Team for the Mars Odyssey mission, and a member of the imaging team for the Cassini mission to Saturn.
He has served as chair of the NASA Space Science Advisory Committee and as a member of the NASA Advisory Council.
Dyer Observatory serves as a community resource for the teaching of science as well as a venue for public, private and corporate events. Each year Dyer hosts thousands of visitors through school tours, observations nights, scout events and other community programs, such as Bluebird on the Mountain.
The observatory is located at 1000 Oman Drive, off Granny White Pike between Old Hickory Boulevard and Otter Creek Road, near Radnor Lake. A map with information and directions is available at www.dyer.vanderbilt.edu/directions.htm.
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Media Contact: Missy Pankake, (615) 322-NEWS
missy.pankake@vanderbilt.edu