SLAS Regular Meeting
Friday, September 17, 2010
7:30pm
McDonnell Hall,
Washington University

The Phoenix Has Landed:
Snowbird on Mars

by

Ms. Selby Cull
Washington University

              NASA?s Phoenix Lander spacecraft touched down in a north polar region of Mars on May 25, 2008. Phoenix was aptly named after the mythological bird that rises newborn from its own ashes. The Lander?s design was derived from the cancelled 2001 Surveyor mission. Its instruments are improved versions of equipment lost when the Mars Polar Lander failed to land successfully. Phoenix landed well, and for five months it sent back to Earth large quantities of images and data.  The first results of early data analysis are now being reported. Ms. Cull will talk about the discoveries Phoenix has made and their importance to future human exploration and to the search for life, or fossil life, on Mars.
            Selby Cull is a Doctoral candidate in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University. Following award of her B.A. from Hampshire College, Selby completed a one-year science journalism internship with Sky and Telescope magazine before enrolling at Washington University. Her research interests are centered on the geology of Mars. She was a member of the Washington University research team working in Tucson analyzing the earliest return of data from the Phoenix Lander. She continues to study the Phoenix data as part of her dissertation research.