January
16 , 2004
Mission
to Mars: Darby Dyar Plays Major Role in Analyzing Rover Data
|
Photo:
Paul Schnaittacher
Darby Dyar, associate professor
of astronomy and geology |
These days you can't pick
up a newspaper or turn on the television without seeing the
latest photographs from the Mars Exploration Rover Mission.
Darby Dyar, Mount Holyoke associate professor of astronomy
and geology, has more than a passing interest in the Mars mission.
As the nation's leading expert in Mössbauer spectroscopy
of minerals, a procedure for identifying and analyzing the
mineral composition of rocks, she is playing a critical role
in analyzing the data collected by the rover. Ultimately, these
findings will help solve mysteries as profound as the origins
of life, and whether we earthlings are alone in the universe.
Dyar describes herself as a "planetary science generalist." As a
graduate student at MIT, she learned about Mössbauer and other types of
spectroscopy with her mentor, Roger Burns. She continued that work, studying
the composition of lunar rocks as well as meteors from Mars. When she learned
that the Mars rovers would carry Mössbauer spectrometers, she applied for
a grant to participate in the project. She received a $150,000 from NASA last
year to build a Web site and fund research that will help interpret the Mössbauer
data collected by the rovers.
Dyar explains that mineral spectra change with temperature, and that the custom-designed
Mössbauer spectrometer in her lab at Mount Holyoke is fairly "unique
in its ability to mimic temperature conditions likely to be found on Mars." Dyar
and her three student assistants are using their spectrometer to produce a database
of "fingerprints" of different minerals likely to be found on Mars
(and other planets and asteroids) at varying temperatures down to 12 K. This
entails putting mineral samples into the spectrometer for 8 to 12 hours—long
enough for the device to acquire a spectrum from the sample—at different
temperatures and recording the results. "Once the rover data are collected,
NASA mission scientists can log onto my Mount Holyoke Web site and find the best
match," Dyar said. "We have already had over 600 hits to the database
since it was first posted in November."
Having spent her professional life working on Mössbauer spectroscopy, which
she admits is a "pretty esoteric specialty," Dyar is pleased to be
working on something that so many people are excited about. Her eight-year-old
son Duncan built a model of a Mars rover out of Legos, which she uses informally
to demonstrate how the rover collects data. When the first photographs of Mars
came out, Duncan and his younger sister Lindy immediately asked their mother
to print them out from the computer for "show and tell" at school. "We're
all really jazzed!"
she said.
As a scientist and a consumer of popular science media, Dyar is stunned by the
quality of the latest photographic images. "It's amazing. The earlier
images were taken by Pathfinder's Sojourner rover, which was about the
size of a laser printer, so they gave a dachshund's eye-view of Mars, whereas
the new images have been taken by a human-sized rover. The detail is amazing.
It's as if you stepped off the rover pad and saw it yourself."
Dyar enjoys teaching at Mount Holyoke. "I really like being at an all-women's
college. It's a good fit for me. I was one of the first women science professors
at the University of Oregon back in 1986. I had very little mentoring. I vowed
that if I ever got the chance to help other women in that situation I would." As
a mother of two young children, she realizes that she sets an example for younger
women science faculty. "I show them it's possible, though sometimes
crazy, to manage this life," she said.
Dyar has been flooded by telephone calls from reporters from all over the country
about her research. Some have expressed surprise that such important research
is coming out of a small liberal arts college. "We do world-class science
here," she said, adding that her work is well suited to a college like
Mount Holyoke. "I have the infrastructure to do this work," Dyar
explained. "The spectrometer itself is relatively inexpensive to purchase
and maintain. The spectroscopy lab is up and running. It has been a great investment
for the College."
Not only the equipment but the human resources lend themselves to Dyar's
research. "The undergraduates have so much enthusiasm and creativity I
can take advantage of," Dyar said. "The students are fully members
of the research group. I'm conducting this project the same way I did at
University of Oregon. Everybody has input. The students are closer to the lab,
so they come up with ways of doing things that I don't think of."
Dyar also commented on her good fortune in having the services of lab technician
Gerard Marchand. "He's wonderful. I hired him just to change the
samples in the lab, but he has a background in electrical engineering that has
been very useful. Because he is a harpist, he also has amazing manual dexterity,
which is needed to handle rare and valuable lunar and martian samples. He has
been able to do all the other things we found we needed."
Dyar is fascinated by the technical challenges raised by the Mars exploration
but also by its metaphysical implications. "As a scientist, I believe that
if the conditions are right, life will arise anywhere," Dyar said. "Life
may not be limited to Earth. We know that meteors from Mars have landed on Earth,
so it's possible that some rock from Mars carried the seeds of life to
Earth. Or maybe a rock from somewhere else brought life to Mars and Earth. We
may not be unique."
The prospect of human settlement on Mars is also exciting to Dyar. "Most
people don't realize that we have the technology now to fly humans to Mars," Dyar
observed. "What we still need is access to hydrogen on Mars so that we
can make rocket fuel for the return trip." She is convinced that when the
time comes, women will be the first travelers to the red planet. "On a
long distance mission like that, about 100 million miles, you need to minimize
the amount of equipment and materials you send. Women are smaller, so they require
less food, water, and other resources. Also, women are better suited psychologically
for the stress of living in such close quarters over a period of six months or
longer." She smiled, adding, "It could be one of my students."
he
un
he
counter is
1,046
|
