NASA Spring 2010 HiRISE Image Suggestion Challenge

A new challenge is beginning for the spring 2010 school semester. NASA is looking for students to determine the next target for the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera in NASA’s search for water on Mars. Register for the Spring 2010 HiRISE Image Suggestion Challenge. You can help choose the next imaging site and search for evidence for where water was once active on the surface of Mars.

HiRISE, one of several instruments on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or MRO, has been taking images of the Martian surface in search of evidence of water since November 2006. The camera takes pictures at a higher resolution, about 25 cm per pixel, than any other Martian explorer to date. The higher resolution allows scientists to see details of the Martian surface as small as a meter across.
HiRISE also is known as “The People’s Camera” because anyone, regardless of scientific background, can help suggest where to point the camera and analyze the resulting images. Participants make a direct and significant contribution to the study of the Martian surface.

Imaging site proposals are due April 5, 2010.

Over the past three years, more than 13,000 students have participated in the HiRISE Image Suggestion Challenge. The students, in second-grade through college, hail from such diverse locales as Hungary, Nepal, Curacao, India, Arizona, California and New Jersey. We welcome home-schooled participants and individual participation by high school and college students. Each participating class or individual is invited to select regions of Mars that once may have been covered in water. They develop an argument for why these regions are particularly interesting and suggest them to the HiRISE team as potential targets for the camera. All participating students are invited to analyze any resulting images for signs of past water activity and to write image captions that will appear with the images when they are released to the public.

This challenge is brought to you by MRO’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera team in collaboration with NASA Quest.

To learn more about how you can get involved or sign your class up for the spring session, visit http://quest.nasa.gov/challenges/hirise/index.html.