![]() ![]() Tutolo followed his passion for aqueous geochemistry, and he is now an associate professor at the University of Calgary. It was the first time as a scientist that I was doing investigative science and it was really life changing.” “We took all these things I’d been learning since grade school about the scientific method - hypothesis and data collection, all this stuff- and we were actually doing it. “But it was an eye-opening experience,” he said. “Now Shale Hills is this globally famous place I read about in research, but really it’s just another swale somewhere in Pennsylvania,” said Tutolo, who grew up in Lower Burrell, a small city just northeast of Pittsburgh. Tutolo’s journey to Mars began on a gently sloping forest hillside near the University Park campus.Īn environmental systems engineering major at Penn State, Tutolo discovered a love for geochemistry his last semester while taking GEOSC 413W Techniques in Environmental Geochemistry, which included field work at Shale Hills Critical Zone Observatory near Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center in Huntingdon County. It’s a super exciting time as mission topics become related to the search for life, and I hope that excitement translates to new scientists coming on board and also the public’s engagement in these missions.” WE ARE … Martians “So as NASA missions become more and more astrobiology related, Penn State people have become more and more relevant for those missions. “I think for many years we’ve been preparing our students really well in astrobiology,” House said. House said the deep connections demonstrate the increased involvement of geoscientists in NASA missions, and Penn State’s work preparing its students to rise to the occasion. There were a lot of them, and many were working on Mars missions.” “We had a Penn State reunion and all these people showed up. “I didn’t realize the full extent of it until an astrobiology conference last May,” said Rodriguez, who at the time was a postdoctoral scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The group joins a larger cohort of Penn State geosciences faculty and alumni who are active on rover missions - both Curiosity and the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover. ![]() They are different scientists who all came from EMS with different advisers, and they were chosen in this competitive process.” “I think this speaks to the quality of our college,” said Chris House, professor of geosciences and director of the Consortium for Planetary and Exoplanetary Sciences and Technology at Penn State, and a participating scientist on the rover team. Tutolo, Hausrath and Rodriguez are new to the mission. NASA picked about two dozen proposals in a competitive process, choosing a new group of scientists to play active roles in daily planning and to conduct research important to the mission.Īlso selected were Elisabeth "Libby" Hausrath, professor of geosciences at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Laura Rodriguez, staff scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute and Jennifer Eigenbrode, an astrobiologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, who all received their doctoral degrees from the Department of Geosciences. Tutolo, who received his undergraduate degree from Penn State, was one of four graduates of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences selected this year to join the Curiosity science team as participating scientists. “I still haven’t come back down from the fact that I was picked to be part of the Curiosity team,” said Tutolo, an associate professor of geosciences at the University of Calgary who was selected by NASA to study data from the salty region. In October, the rover finally reached a long-sought region of the mountain enriched with salty minerals possibly left behind as the planet dried - climbing higher than it ever has in the process. Since then, the rover's explorations have thrilled scientists and the public alike by finding evidence that the planet’s ancient history included persistent liquid water, the right chemistry to support living microbes and intriguing carbon signatures, among many other discoveries.Īlong its journey, Curiosity has driven 18 miles within Gale Crater and more than 2,000 feet up Mount Sharp - a three-mile-tall Martian mountain at the crater’s center. This fall, NASA’s Curiosity rover reached new heights.Ĭuriosity landed on Mars a decade ago to study whether Earth’s rocky neighbor could have supported microbial life in its deep past.
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