# Presentation: 730646

## MRO’s HIGH RESOLUTION IMAGING SCIENCE EXPERIMENT (HiRISE): EDUCATION AND PUBLIC OUTREACH PLANS. 

**Virginia Gulick (NASA Ames/SETI Institute), MS 239-20, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, *****vgulick@mail.arc.nasa.gov***** and the HiRISE team ****(Alfred McEwen****2****, Candy Hanson****3****, Nathan Bridges****3****, Alan Delamere****4****, Eric Eliason****5****, John Grant****6****, Ken Herkenhoff****5****, Laszlo Keszthelyi****5****, Randy Kirk****5****, Mike Mellon****7****, Peter Smith****2****, Steve Squyres****8****, Nick Thomas****9**** and Cathy Weitz****10****.** *2**Univ. of AZ, **3**JPL, **4**Ball Aerospace & Tech. Corp., **5**USGS-Flagstaff, **6**CEPS, Smithsonian Institute, **7**University of Colorado, **8**Cornell University, **9**University of Bern, Switzerland, **10**PSI/NASA-HQ).*
** **

- 	The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) will fly on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) mission, planned for launch in August of 2005. HiRISE will investigate deposits and landforms resulting from geologic and climatic processes and is optimized for the evaluation of candidate landing sites. The camera will combine unprecedented resolution (25-50 cm/pixel) and signal-to-noise ratio with a 5-10 km swath width and partial 3-color coverage. HiRISE will image a carefully selected few percent of the surface area of Mars on a variety of scales down to 1 meter, a resolution currently afforded only in glimpses by landers. Therefore, HiRISE will provide a bridge between orbital remote sensing and landed missions.

## HIRISE SCIENCE GOALS

**HIRISE SCIENCE GOALS**

- Exploded view of a HiRISE design. Actual flight structure is slightly different.

- HiRISE newly
- mounted on
- MRO spacecraft at Lockheed Martin in Denver.
- Note size of camera relative to spacecraft!

## HiRISE E/PO PLAN

| E/PO Partners & Collaborators | Responsibilities |
| --- | --- |
| NASA Quest | Organize web events, chats, forums, and polls to educate and filter student & public suggestions for imaging targets. |
| MarsQuest | Traveling exhibit will include HiRISE materials. |
| Space Place &Technology Teacher | Publish & distribute HiRISE curriculum material. |
| ASU Mars K-12 Education Program & others | Present professional education workshops with HiRISE content. |
| Smithsonian Institution | Digital projection of HiRISE images before IMAX shows and during intermissions. Image display in renovated “Exploring the Planets” exhibit. |
| Imagiverse | Translation of HiRISE materials into Spanish and other languages, team interviews, etc. |
| Clickworkers | Online public participation in data analysis. |

**HiRISE E/PO PLAN**

## MEET THE HIRISE TEAM

**The HiRISE instrument and science teams together at Ball Aerospace & Technology Corp. in Boulder, Colorado., January, 2002.**

**MEET THE HIRISE TEAM**

- 	In addition to the roles and responsibilities listed above, several team members will also be involved in coordinating and prioritizing observations for HiRISE image targeting according to their respective science theme(s). This will help to insure that a variety of imaging observations of high priority are  selected.
- 	The HiRISE team welcomes and will facilitate involvement by the science community and the public. All team members are involved in HiRISE's E/PO effort. User-friendly web tools will be available to both the science community and the public to view/analyze HiRISE images and to submit image observation requests. Processed images will be released soon after acquisition to allow everyone to share in the scientific discovery process.

## HIRISE PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: ALFRED MCEWEN

**HIRISE PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: ALFRED MCEWEN**

- In 1996 I moved to the University of Arizona, where I am now a professor of planetary science. To my surprise, I now find myself in a strong position to influence the lives and careers of smart young people such as students who want to explore Mars.  I arrived at this position because I was skilled (or at least diligent) at processing and analyzing digital images, alone with a computer, not because I was good with people.   My personal goal for the future is to learn how to make the most of this opportunity.    When assembling the HiRISE science team, I needed people with all of the essential scientific and technical skills, but I also wanted people who would share “The People's Camera” philosophy.   I consider myself immensely lucky to have successfully attracted such a terrific team. HiRISE is crucial to finding the best locations to land, explore Mars on the surface, and collect rocks to return to Earth.  NASA's Mars Exploration Program is focused on finding evidence for past or present life on Mars.  Actual discovery of Martian life would be of enormous significance to basic science, but nobody knows the chances of success.  I've struggled a little to decide what I think about this emphasis on finding life.  Our home planet has major environmental problems that are not receiving the attention needed to enable much of Earth's people to live quality lives.  Why spend billions of dollars to explore Mars instead of addressing critical problems on this planet?   But if we cancelled Mars exploration, the funds would not necessarily go towards conservation.  Our priorities need to change.  Maybe the search for life on Mars will help make that change, by making us better appreciate the rarity of abundant and complex life.

*Alfred McEwen, with son Ian, in Mars-like terrain in Iceland. *

## SCIENCE THEME: VOLCANOLOGY 

- Mars is fundamentally a volcanic planet.  Geologic mapping of Mars shows that about half the surface seems to be covered with volcanic materials that have been modified to some extent by other processes (such as meteorite impacts, blowing wind, and floods of water).  Mars has the largest volcanoes in the entire Solar System.  The great volumes of erupted lava have had a profound impact on the entire planet, extracting heat and selected chemicals from within, adding large amounts of acidic gas to the atmosphere, and providing heat to melt frozen water in the crust.  Mars cannot be understood without studying its volcanoes. HiRISE will provide the ideal tool to study some of the most puzzling aspects of Mars volcanism.  One example is “what were the eruptions that formed the giant lava flows like”?  Did the lava ooze quietly out of the ground or did it come blasting up in massive  explosions?  Detailed pictures of the vents are essential for answering these questions.  We expect that many of the flows were fed by tall “curtains of lava” playing over long fissures in the ground.  Thus we expect to find rows of cones along cracks in the ground, like are seen in Iceland.  The pictures from other cameras have been too fuzzy to find these kinds of features on Mars. Another high priority will be to image places where both lava and water have come gushing out of the ground.  These are places where microbes that might live in the deep, warm, wet parts of the crust could have been brought to the surface.  Finding scientifically interesting spots that are safe to land future rovers is one of the primary goals for the MRO mission.

***Observation Coordinator: Laszlo Keszthelyi ***

**SCIENCE THEME: VOLCANOLOGY**** **

**Figure 1. **Rows of lava cones lining the crack from which the Laki lava flow erupted in 1783-1784 in Iceland.  This was the largest lava eruption for which detailed written records exist.  The gases from this eruption also caused a famine that killed about 20% of the population of Iceland and cooled the climate across the entire Northern Hemisphere.  The cones in this picture are about 10 meters tall (30 feet).  The path in the distance is actually a one-lane dirt road.

*Laszlo Keszthelyi *

## SCIENCE THEME: LAYERING PROCESSES 

**Figure 2. **“Colorized” subframe of Mars Orbiter Camera image M03-02733 of layered deposits inside Holden Crater.  Because a large valley called Uzboi Vallis can be seen entering into the crater, the layers shown here could be from the deposition of sediments in the water from this valley. Illumination from the upper left. Figure courtesy of Malin Space Science Systems/NASA.

**Figure 1. **“Colorized” subframe of Mars Orbiter Camera image M14-01647 of layered deposits inside an impact crater in Western Arabia Terra.  Hundreds of layers can be seen exposed by erosion. The layers are partially covered by dark debris that has filled in topographic lows between the layers. All the layers appear similar in their thicknesses and textures, suggesting they formed by the same process. What formed them? Perhaps deposition of sediments in water, or ash/dust settling out from the atmosphere. Illumination from the left. Figure courtesy of Malin Space Science Systems/NASA.

**SCIENCE THEME: LAYERING PROCESSES**** **

***Observation Coordinator: Cathy Weitz ***

## SCIENCE THEME: LANDSCAPE EVOLUTION 

**SCIENCE THEME: LANDSCAPE EVOLUTION**** **

***Observation Coordinator: John Grant (Smithsonian)***

**Figure 1. **Example of chaotic Martian terrain.

*John Grant *

## SCIENCE THEME: POLAR GEOLOGY 

***Observation Coordinator: Ken Herkenhoff ***

**SCIENCE THEME: POLAR GEOLOGY**** **

**Figure 1. **MGS Mars Orbiter Camera image M03-03597 of the south polar layered deposits. Resolution= 8.5 m/pixel, illumination from bottom.

*Ken Herkenhoff *

## SCIENCE THEME: FLUVIAL & HYDROTHERMAL PROCESSES 

- More so than any other feature, the abundant evidence for past water activity on Mars has captured the attention and imagination of members of the public and scientists.  From the giant outflow channels to the smaller valley networks (Fig. 1) to the relatively tiny fresh young gullies (Fig. 2), Mars displays evidence of fluvial erosion at all ages and scales.  The interpretation of this evidence, three decades after the first signs of Martian water were found, remains elusive.   Several origins have been proposed for these features, including glaciers, water runoff during a warmer, wetter period in Mars’ history, and hydrothermally driven ground-water outflow. The keys to distinguishing which mechanisms were most active are likely found at the smallest scales within these fluvial features.  By clearly resolving meter-scale features, HiRISE should be able to help differentiate between  various  formation mechanisms.  The improvement in image resolution between HiRISE and the typical MOC image (Fig. 2) will be comparable to the improvement between the best Viking images (such as Fig. 1) and MOC.
- The background image (MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-250) shows Dao, Niger, and Harmakhis  Valles emerging from the flank of the Hecates volcano.  The association between the volcano and the outflow channel may imply a hydrothermal origin for the channel.

***Observation Coordinator: Ginny Gulick ***

**SCIENCE THEME: FLUVIAL & HYDROTHERMAL PROCESSES**** **

**Figure 1. **Young** **fluvial valleys found on the northern slope of the volcano Alba Patera.  The prominent crater is about 1 km in diameter. Viking high resolution image ~8m/px.

**Figure 2. **Very young gullies found on the slopes of a southern hemisphere impact crater on Mars.  The image width is about the same as the crater diameter in Figure 1. MOC narrow angle image (MOC2-388).

- Ginny Gulick and younger daughter Alicia near a glacial melt water channel in Iceland.

## HiRISE IMAGE VIEWER

- HiRISE images will be very large (max. size ~ 28Gbits) and will require the development of a special image viewer that will allow users to seemlessly view, pan, zoom and analyze HiRISE images at full resolution over the web even over low-bandwidth connections.

**HiRISE IMAGE VIEWER**

- Our prototype HiRISE Sample image viewer allows users to pan & zoom around parts of the Grand Canyon at a spatial resolution similar to what we expect for HiRISE.

## PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

**Suggesting HiRISE  Image Observations **
-  Our user-friendly website, HiWEB, will provide for image browsing as well as submission of image suggestions.
-  An interactive data map (left) will allow seamless access to all HiRISE, other MRO, and previous Mars mission data including image, topographic, spectral, and derived data sets. User will be able to rubber-band select and submit image targets.
-  Anyone will be able to submit image suggestions for HiRISE to target. Suggestions will be routed to appropriate HiRISE Co-Investigators for consideration. Suggestions by students will be filtered by NASA Quest and other EPO partners. The HiRISE team together with their education partners will host web events and workshops to educate the public and to encourage high quality suggestions.
-  Online web tools will allow easy analysis of data.

**PUBLIC PARTICIPATION**

**Data Analysis**
-  The public will be able to participate in data analysis through modules such as those tested in the Clickworkers (_[http://](http://clickworkers.arc.nasa.gov/)__[clickworkers](http://clickworkers.arc.nasa.gov/)__[.arc.](http://clickworkers.arc.nasa.gov/)__[nasa](http://clickworkers.arc.nasa.gov/)__[.](http://clickworkers.arc.nasa.gov/)__[gov](http://clickworkers.arc.nasa.gov/)_) proof of concept study (right).
-  Over 80,000 individual users collectively identified (dots) essentially every impact crater (>~1km) on Mars.  Excellent fidelity of results was demonstrated by comparison of collective decision-making (circles) to the published crater catalogs.
-  Public users will generate a variety of geologic feature databases (e.g., gullies, boulders, erosional, volcanic and permafrost features, etc.) and may be able to participate in image validation for the HiRISE team.

## Suggesting a HiRISE Image Target

**Suggesting a HiRISE Image Target**

- Choose a target
- Register/login
- Select image options
- Justify target selection
- Specify season (if needed)
- Pick view angle (if needed)
- Submit!

- 1

- 2

- 3

- 4

- 5

- 6

- 7