UA News

Peter Smith heads the month's Science Café discussion with images and insights on discoveries found during the Phoenix Mars MIssion.

Flandrau: The UA Science Center is holding its next "Science Café" at Cushing Street Bar & Restaurant in Downtown Tucson on Tuesday, May 5, at 6 pm.

Peter Smith, principal investigator for the Phoenix Mars Mission, will present a short talk entitled "Journey of the Phoenix" and will share images taken by the NASA Phoenix Mars Lander, which touched down in the Martian arctic on May 25, 2008. He will share his thoughts about finding life outside of Earth.

Smith will reveal some of the initial scientific findings from the Phoenix mission and the prospects for finding life on the Red Planet and answer the following questions: What did the Phoenix Mars Lander find on Mars? Did they find evidence of water? Did Mars support life sometime in its history?

Finding life in the universe seemed unimaginable just a few years ago, but according to a prediction from Smith, finding life outside of Earth will be accomplished in the next 10 years. Smith believes microscopic organisms will be found on Mars and said, "I think it's coming, I really do," Smith noted. "At some point, we'll turn over a rock, and by gosh there it is."

Launched in August 2007, the Phoenix Mars Mission was the first in NASA's Scout Program. It was designed to study the history of water and habitability potential in the Martian Arctic's ice-rich soil. The mission was a collaboration of numerous agencies and academic institutions, including the University of Arizona's Science Operations Center, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver. International contributions are from the Canadian Space Agency and the Max Planck Institute in Germany.

After a spectacular landing on Mars, a stationary probe with its robotic arm, a weather station, a series of ovens, a microscope and cameras were controlled by Smith and his crew from the UA's Science Operations Center. The mission focused on digging and analyzing soil samples from an area about the size of a couch on the very cold, dry, volcanic planet where, according to Smith, there has been no rain for at least 100,000 years.

The success of the Phoenix Mars mission was just one more significant milestone in Smith's career. He is a pioneer and veteran of the United States space program and a member of UA's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory since 1978. Smith has participated in many of the seminal space missions that have explored the solar system. In 1997, NASA's Pathfinder Mission relayed images of the Red Planet captured by Smith's camera on board the Sojourner Rover. He spent nearly two years managing the building of the 2005 Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE camera for which the UA's Alfred McEwen is the principal investigator. Smith also has experienced his share of disappointment, which is inherent in leading complicated space missions. In 1999, the Mars Polar Lander mission crashed on the Martian surface. That failure prompted the cancellation of the 2001 Mars Surveyor Program mission. Both projects included UA cameras.

To discover what was found on Mars and what's planned in future, plan on seeing Peter Smith at the next Science Café.

Shipherd Reed will moderate the discussion. Reed, who promises to wrap things up by 7:30 p.m., will keep the discussion lively and on track. Following the program, audience members will have the opportunity to submit discussion topic ideas for subsequent Science Café events.