Mount Holyoke College • Vista • Fall 2012, Volume 17 No. 2


From Mars to MHC
When NASA’s Mars Rover Curiosity touched down on the Red Planet in August, Professor of Astronomy Darby Dyar had about the closest thing to a front row seat. As part of a select team of scientists providing expertise and support, she watched from Mission Control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California. That 10:31 PM landing was just the start of Dyar’s Martian adventure. For the first 90 “sols” (Martian days), Dyar divided her time between Pasadena and South Hadley. While at the Jet Propulsion Lab, she assisted with the daily operations of the Mars Science Lab (MSL), one of the most complex science laboratories ever built. And the next chapter was equally out of this world: data received at Mission Control from the MSL then traveled to Dyar’s lab on the Mount Holyoke campus for analysis.



“We’re a liberal arts college but we do first-class scientific research here,” Dyar said. “What’s different is that undergraduates—not Ph.D. candidates—are doing this really high-level work.”


Dyar, her lab manager Elly Breves, student Melissa Nelms ’13, and recent graduates Marie Ozanne ’12 and Michelle DeVeaux ’12 have begun developing a database of spectra and chemical analyses of Earth-based rocks and minerals. These, in turn, will be used by Dyar and other scientists to identify the composition of minerals that Curiosity encounters on Mars.


A NASA grant for fundamental research supported the purchase and installation of a laser-induced breakdown spectrometer analogous to the ChemCam instrument on MSL. This complex instrument uses a laser to melt a rock into a plasma from up to 7 meters away. Statistical routines developed by Dyar and her students use those data to identify the chemical makeup of rocks on Earth and apply those models to Martian surface materials. There are only five such Mars- atmosphere units in existence, including the one inside Curiosity.


 “It’s incredibly exciting to be part of NASA’s work, but what I find most gratifying is involving my students in the research,” said Dyar. “Here they are at Mount Holyoke getting experience that even established scientists can’t access. This is an institution that always has been on the cutting edge when it comes to women and science.”


 


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Vista is published twice a year by the Mount Holyoke College Office of Communications. Vista is produced for prospective Mount Holyoke students; alumnae; faculty and staff; parents of current students; and other friends of the College.


Creative Director and Editor: Tekla McInerney



Writers: Michelle Ducharme, Bonnie Sennott


Copyeditor: Bonnie Sennott


Executive Director of Communications and Marketing: Patricia VandenBerg


Cover photo by Michael Malyszko


©2012 by Mount Holyoke College. Portions of Vista may be reproduced with the permission of the Office of Communications, 50 College Street, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA 01075-1459; 413-538- 2989; email: tmcinern@mtholyoke.edu. Third-class postage paid at South Hadley, MA 01075 An electronic version of Vista is available at www.mtholyoke.edu/admission/publications.html

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