Well . . . How about Sunday?

The images are here! Go to http://www.gatesscience.info/teamescience/msip2009.htm and take a look. Craters and Channels, you're fine. Lava Tubes? I only see one. All three groups, feel free to use the "Wild Card" image as an alternative to your image. I'd like to see as many of you as possible Monday afternoon.

Clear Skies,

Mr. Lindgren

Don't Panic! It's what science is really like!

Your images should be here by Friday. As soon as I get them, I'll post them to the MSIP projects page (The page you used to get to the blog). Hopefully you have everything except the actual measurements done by this point.

Clear Skies,

Mr. Lindgren

Things to do until the images arrive

"I’m glad it was a neat afternoon. I’m also glad you were excited to put in a couple of targets yourself as well. The hope is, both primary and secondary targets (for each group) will be acquired. As soon as the images are down on the ground I will get them to you. Things have been coming down a little slow, so hopefully we can get an electronic copy of the images to the students before they display their projects. The images will be acquired on Tuesday of next week. We’ll probably not have them on the ground until you are here. We can have you email them to the students (or at least I can put them on a link where the students can get them) once I have the images." - NASA Scientist at ASU

So . . . the most important thing for each group to do is to get as much done beforehand. DON'T wait until the images arrive to start. Here are some ideas.

Craters:

Start looking at images from the satllite you selected. Try to get an image the same size as the THEMIS image. If you can't get one that small, then use a portion of a larger scale. Read this article - http://msip.asu.edu/uploads/243/paper1.doc it contains a much simpler graph from the one you were going to use. What "age" do you think your crater image was? Use that as a guide, and actually find the age of the lunar surface. Then, when you get the Mars image, do the same thing.

Lava Tubes:

Find THEMIS images of each stage in the destruction of a lava tube showing all of the physical characteristics. You have no idea on what you're going to get. Actually, one of the images I'm getting might work if your's don't show anything. Go back and look at http://www.gatesscience.info/teamescience/pdf/msip/finale2.pdf to see how another group did this.

Channels:

Research the depositional features that should be found in bends in channels. You are attempting to discover if the same is true for Mars as Earth. Go to Google Earth and try and find dried up rivers in the American southwest. They will probably show the same type of features as channels on Mars.

GET Busy!

Targeting Results

ASU e-mailed me to confirm that the targets arrived. They have been put in the cache to be uploaded to the spacecraft! I've posted your images to the website. If you're checking this message you'll see that there's a new row in this table for the targeting images. If you click on that it will take you to our primary and secondary images. I'd suggest you start to write a description of that area now.

Nice Work, by the way!

We Did GOOD!

Don't let your English teacher see this, but we really did GOOD! This is the best set of orbits I have ever seen! He have the Hellas Basin! I've NEVER had the Hellas Basin before. We have several passes through Valles Marineris. All three groups have a great chance to obtain great images, but you must choose carefully. Your answers must be sent to ASU by 5:00 p.m. est Thursday. The URL for your orbits is http://tinyurl.com/7288no go to it! Practice! Come to 121 on Thursday afternoon ready to refine your work and post!

Clear Skies,

Mr. Lindgren

Another Major Change!

ASU will let all three groups target. Be sure you're at the meeting on Monday.

ASU Had a change of Heart!

Good news for the cratering group! ASU will let you target. They'll send me the information Monday.

The News is not Good

Here's the latest from ASU:

1. Crater group: Did this group not read my comment on their question. You CAN NOT tell which crater from 2 different surfaces is older – you can look at them and state which appears to be older/younger based on SPECIFIC features. The question as written is not answerable. They still did not talk much about what erosional processes may take effect on Mars. This should most definitely be included in a final report. If they are looking at 4 Mars images, they should also look at 4 Moon images. What’s to say that all Moon crater images will look the same? Comparing just 1 moon image is unrealistic. How will counting the number of small, medium and large craters in an image help answer their question? If you are looking at craters with the same diameter, and then you graph the diameter of those craters on the Moon and Mars, what will that graph look like? Will it show anything that relates to the question? As for the graph that was sent later – they need to explain this graph, cite the source and explain how this fits in with their project.

2. Lava tubes: Was anything much changed? There were images that were included, which was helpful. Is looking at only 5 images much different than look at only 3? If you are going to take measurements, why wouldn’t you graph your data? Why take measurements if this is the case? You won’t even plot your images on a map so that others know what lava tubes you look at on different volcanoes? And how do you determine if one lava tube appears older or younger than another? This is not clearly stated. What SPECIFIC characteristics will allow you to relatively age date a lava tube. The Pythagorean theorem will not provide you with the correct depth of a lava tube. How will you measure the length and the width? What happened to a data table?

3. Channels: What characteristics are they looking for? They have stated numerous times how lava tubes, flows and water channels form – but what are the distinctive characteristics that allow you to know whether you are looking at one feature versus another? How many images will you look at? The main problem here is that there are no characteristics of any feature that is described. There is still no data analysis section – how can any science experiment have no data analysis section? If you are going to analyze your image – how are you going to analyze it – there is no description of this. What characteristics are you looking for to analyze?

**For all groups they need to consider that their small amount of data gives them only a starting point for making some preliminary observations. It does not allow them to draw any reliable conclusions. They can state this, and should state this, if they only use these small numbers of images/data for the research. They also ALL need to specify what specific characteristics they will be looking for.**

There won't be time to do ANOTHER rewrite. Let's go with using archived images.

ASU's Reply to your outlines

I took a look at these proposals and actually the crater one has more potential than the other. I have made some comments (in red) on both proposals within the body of the proposal as well as some general comments at the end. Both groups would need to make some adjustments to their proposals in order to be able to target. The Channel group has a way to go, though its doable if they do make some adjustments. The Moon group will need to specify where they will get their Moon data, as well as make some adjustments to their question as well. The crater group at least has some information that ties together their proposal. The channel group is very disconnected. Both groups biggest weakness is the fact that they want to do a scientific study with 1 piece (or very few pieces) of data. Answering a question using 1 THEMIS images is IMPOSSIBLE!!!

This means ypou won't have time to target and get the images back in time for the fair. Your only hope now is to work with existing images.