Fellow dialists,
The attached news release appeared today on Usenet's sci.astro newsgroup;
not only is it about the sundial destined for Mars, but it mentions one
of the esteemed subscribers to this list, our own Woody Sullivan.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Mark Gingrich [EMAIL PROTECTED] San Leandro, California
[begin attached text]
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 10:02:35 -0400
From: Andrew Yee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Newsgroups: sci.astro
Subject: Martian sundial designed for 2001 space mission is unveiled by
Bill Nye "The Science Guy" (Forwarded)
News Service
Cornell University
Contact: David Brand
Office: (607) 255-3651 E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE: 10 a.m. EDT, April 21, 1999
Martian sundial designed for 2001 space mission is unveiled by Bill Nye "The
Science Guy"
ITHACA, N.Y. -- For the first time in history, humanity will send a sundial to
another planet. Inscribed with the motto "Two Worlds, One Sun," the sundial
will travel to Mars aboard NASA's Mars Surveyor 2001 lander.
Pictures of the sundial, taken by the lander's panoramic camera after its
arrival at Mars in January 2002, will reveal the passage of the hours and
seasons as the sun moves across the Martian sky. And the sundial's central
black, gray, and white rings and corner color tiles will act as a calibration
target -- a kind of test pattern -- to adjust the brightness and tint of
pictures taken by the camera.
In the process, the sundial could become one of the most photographed
objects ever sent to another world.
The sundial design team included Jon Lomberg, an artist and creative
consultant to the Mauna Kea Center for Astronomy Education, Hawaii; Tyler
Nordgren, an artist and astronomer at the U.S. Naval Observatory in
Flagstaff, Ariz.; sundial expert Woodruff Sullivan, professor of astronomy
at the University of Washington; Louis Friedman, executive director of the
Planetary Society; Cornell University astronomers Steven Squyres and Jim
Bell; and Bill Nye, the television writer and host of the public television
children's science program, "Bill Nye The Science Guy."
"Our ancestors made astonishing discoveries about the nature of the heavens
and our place in it by closely watching the motion of shadows," said Nye,
unveiling the sundial design at a press conference at Cornell today (April
21). "Now, at the dawn of the next century, we can make observations of new
shadows, this time on another planet."
Appropriately for a science instrument involving Nye, the sundial design
evolved through suggestions and drawings from children across the United
States, solicited by Sheri Klug, director of Arizona State University's Mars
Education and Outreach Program.
The sundial will be 3 inches (about 8 centimeters ) square, and will weigh
just over 2 ounces (60 grams). Made of aluminum to minimize its weight, the
anodized metal surfaces will be black and gold. The photometric surfaces,
which will be used to calibrate the Mars lander's color panoramic camera,
called the Pancam, are made of a special silicone rubber compound.
Photo-etching and engraving will be used to apply the lettering and the
drawings to the face and side panels of the sundial.
The central black, gray and white calibration rings are arranged to
represent the orbits of Mars and Earth, and red and blue dots show the
positions of the planets at the time of the landing in 2002. Portions of the
central shadow post are gold to represent the sun.
The sundial carries a message for future Martian explorers who may seek it
out, or who may find it by good fortune. The four gold side panels around
the sundial's base are engraved with the words:
"People launched this spacecraft from Earth in our year 2001. It arrived on
Mars in 2002. We built its instruments to study the Martian environment and
to look for signs of life. We used this post and these patterns to adjust
our cameras and as a sundial to reckon the passage of time. The drawings and
words represent the people of Earth. We sent this craft in peace to learn
about Mars' past and about our future. To those who visit here, we wish a
safe journey and the joy of discovery."
The Pancam is is one of four instruments being developed for the Mars 2001
lander under the leadership of Squyres, a Cornell professor of astronomy,
assisted by 20 researchers around the world, including Bell, an assistant
professor of astronomy, and a team of about 20 Cornell undergraduates and
staff. Together these instruments form the Athena Precursor Experiment,
or APEX, which will be a prelude to the Athena Mars rover and sample
return mission in 2003.
To help design the sundial, Arizona State's Klug sought the ideas of
schoolchildren. Announcements were made at a meeting of the National
Science Teachers Association in Seattle in 1998, and via several
international electronic mailing lists. Over 160 design concepts were
submitted from children across the country.
One idea suggested by children was that the sundial bear writing in many
languages, representing the diverse cultures of Earth. The face of the
sundial is engraved with the word "Mars" in Arabic, Bengali, Braille,
Chinese, Danish, English, French, German, Greek, Hawaiian, Hebrew, Hindi,
Inuktituk, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lingala, Malay-Indonesian, Portuguese,
Russian, Spanish and Thai. Together these languages are used by more than
three quarters of Earth's population. Also included are ancient Sumerian and
Mayan. Mars figured prominently in both the Sumerian and Mayan cultures.
Several children also suggested that stick-figure drawings be included,
representing the people of Earth. Artist Lomberg combined stick figures
drawn by children with other space-related motifs to create the series of
drawings that appear on the sundial's side panels. The aim of these pictures
is to capture the optimistic spirit of the text message, combining a
childlike sense of wonder with a vision of the human future in space.
Once the spacecraft lands on Mars and the exact orientation of the sundial
can be determined, viewers will be able to tell local Martian time from
sundial images and a computer-generated overlay posted on the World Wide
Web. Mirrored segments along the outer ring of the sundial will also reveal
the color of the sky above the lander. Over the course of a day, viewers on
Earth will thus see the passage of time on Mars recorded in the sweep of the
shadow of the sundial's central post and the changing colors of the Martian
sky. The shadow will also reveal the changing Martian seasons over the full
duration of the mission.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Related World Wide Web sites: The following sites provide additional
information on this news release. Some might not be part of the Cornell
University community, and Cornell has no control over their content or
availability.
* APEX/Athena Project
http://athena.cornell.edu
* NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mars Surveyor 2001 mission
http://www.mars.jpl.nasa.gov/2001
* Cornell astronomy department
http://astrosun.tn.cornell.edu
* Arizona K-12 Mars Education Program
http://emma.la.asu.edu/neweducation.html
-30-
[NOTE: Images supporting this release are available at
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/April99/Sundial.Apex.Nasa.html .
See also a separate release issued by the University of Washington,
http://www.washington.edu/newsroom/news/1999archive/04-99archive/k042199.html .]
[Image 1]
A computer-generated image of the sundial.
[Image 2]
These four panels will appear on the four sides of the base.
--
Andrew Yee
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
