PLANETARY SCIENTIST TO SPEAK AT INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY

Princeton, N.J. - September 22, 2004 - Planetary scientist Steven Squyres will speak on "The Mars Exploration Rover Mission" on October 5 at 5:30 p.m. in Wolfensohn Hall on the campus of the Institute for Advanced Study.

Squyres is the scientific Principal Investigator for NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Project. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1981 and worked with NASA for five years at their Ames Research Center before returning to Cornell, where he is now a Professor of Astronomy. 

Scientific research for which Squyres is best known includes study of water on Mars and of a possible ocean on Jupiter’s moon Europa. He has participated in many missions of planetary exploration, including the Voyager mission to Jupiter and Saturn, the Magellan mission to Venus, the Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, and MRO missions to Mars, the NEAR mission to the asteroid Eros, and the Cassini mission to Saturn. 

Squyres has served as the Chairman of NASA’s Space Science Advisory Committee and as a member of the NASA Advisory Council. 

The lecture, which is sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Study’s School of Natural Sciences, is free and open to the public. For further information, call (609) 734-8202.