For more than a decade, NASA’s MER rovers Spirit and Opportunity provided a field geologist’s view of the Martian surface, providing a foundation for continuing in situ exploration of our planetary neighbor. A member of the MER Science team, Andrew Knoll will discuss scientific highlights from the mission, as well as continuing insights from MER’s descendants, the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers. Much has been learned about Mars’ environmental history, but outstanding questions remain, including the question of life.
Some 5,000 years ago, a Neolithic civilization in southern England erected the world’s most famous standing-stone monument. Yet its builders left no written records, so why and how they constructed it remains a mystery. Many of the smaller pillars, known as bluestones, were hauled to the site from central Wales — more than 100 miles away. And while Stonehenge is most famous for its alignment with the rising Sun during summer solstice, some researchers have suggested that it could have been constructed to serve as a daily calendar or even an eclipse calculator. Whatever its true purpose, Stonehenge remains an iconic enigma visited by 800,000 people each year.
For the past 50 years, Joe Rao has traveled around the world to observe total solar eclipses. He has observed the solar corona from land, sea and air, from such diverse locations as the North Pole and Antarctica, Montana, Turkey and Canada's Gaspe Peninsula.
