so I’m dr. Tonya Harrison and I like to
call myself a professional Martian
because I work on rocks and robots on
the red planet for a living and I
managed to find a way to do so that ties
in another passion in my life
photography when I was a kid I saw the
movie Big Bird in Japan where our
beloved yellow friend meets Kaguya Jemez
the Japanese princess of the Moon and I
was utterly fascinated by this and after
watching it I went outside every clear
night granted that’s not necessarily
very often if you grow up in Seattle but
I went out every set every night to
stare at the moon and I realized over
time when I would go out and stare at
the sky that it wasn’t actually the
Stars that caught my attention but
rather the little points of light that
were the other worlds in our solar
system to think that we had spaceships
watching the things that went on on
these other worlds absolutely captivated
me and then in 1997 NASA landed a
mission called Pathfinder on Mars
Pathfinder unfolded like a robotic
flower and out of it drove a shoebox
sized Rover called Sojourner the first
Rover that humans had ever sent to
another planet the Pathfinder Lander
captured a series of images of Sojourner
driving off the lander platform and onto
the surface of Mars and NASA released
these in these images as an animated gif
back in 1997 before animated gifts were
all over the internet and I was hooked I
could not believe that we had the
ability to put a robot on top of a
rocket launch it toward a moving target
140 million miles away land that robot
in a specific place on that moving
target and command that robot to not
only conduct scientific investigations
of specific rocks but of specific pieces
of those rocks on that moving target a
hundred and forty million miles away
that blew my mind it still blows my mind
even now that I work on these Rovers on
Mars every day and I knew firmly thanks
to Sojourner that I wanted to be
involved in space exploration
specifically involved in Mars so skip
ahead 10 years a couple of college
degrees and dozens of emails to Mars
scientists begging for jobs and I ended
up working for a NASA subcontractor that
built most of the cameras that we’ve
ever sent to the Red Planet I was
brought on as a targeting specialist for
the context camera on NASA’s Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter and this was a
really interesting mix of photography
and science as far as the job was
concerned it was my job to pick what the
camera would take pictures of each day
while taking photographic basics into
account like lighting and Composition
and after weeks of training I finally
when that image came back to earth it
was an overwhelming feeling knowing that
I was the first human to ever see this
little piece of Mars like this for a
brief moment I had a very intimate
relationship with this tiny bit of Mars
and it was beautiful even though I’d
looked at thousands of images of Mars
before that point the feeling of looking
at an image that I had taken was
entirely different because it was the
culmination of years of dreams and hard
work all coming together in the form of
this single photograph and for the next
few years I got to experience this
intimate relationship with Mars on a
daily basis every day I would come into
work in the morning and I would get to
look at the pictures that we had taken
with the context camera the day before
and I was often the first human to ever
see these pictures and that’s an almost
indescribable feeling it’s kind of like
getting to see Star Wars before anyone
else on the planet so I would hope that
you would know that looking at a
photograph versus taking a photograph or
seeing something for yourself is a very
different things for example the feeling
that I got from looking at images of the
Northern Lights did not prepare me at
all for the overwhelming sense of
emotion and wonder that I felt at seeing
them in person for the first time or the
reactions that I see from people when
they look at Cassini images of Saturn
these are truly stunning images that
definitely elicit a reaction from people
but the audible reaction front
well when they look through a telescope
and see Saturn and its rings with their
own eyes for the first time is a whole
nother level people gasp they exclaim oh
wow they smile and go back to the
telescope eyepiece for more so now let
me let you in on a little secret
you don’t have to work for NASA to get
this sense of wonder or to explore the
cosmos for yourself you can even help
NASA explore the universe you can target
your own images of Mars right now with a
camera orbiting the red planet called
high rise through their website hi wish
you can pick what pieces you’d like to
take pictures of on Mars and they’ll
send you an email when those pictures
have been taken meanwhile on the Martian
surface
amateur image processors create stunning
mosaics of images from the Mars rovers
whose raw images are released to the
public on a daily basis on NASA’s
website farther out in the solar system
nASA has specifically called for help
from the public in processing images
from the Juno spacecraft at Jupiter to
help us understand the mystery and
beauty of the largest planet in our
solar system and if you have a telescope
and a lot of patience you might even be
able to discover a comet that will bear
your name for the rest of human history
so you too can join in on the emotional
journey of data of discovery through
roarysaurus a citizen science project to
help us better understand the Northern
Lights amateur astronomers helped
discover a new type of Aurora that has
been officially named Steve
it’s not even an acronym it’s just
called Steve you can help scientists
explore through another project called
Zooniverse which has 81 separate
projects right now spanning everything
from space to literature to medicine you
can help scientists discover planets
around other stars or map out features
on the surface of Mars if space isn’t
your thing you can help scientists learn
how to fight antibiotic resistant
bacteria or you can help us learn more
about Earth’s climate history by reading
through climate records from 19th
century sailing ships you can even help
scientists understand changes in penguin
populations through the penguin watch
program I mean who wouldn’t want to look
at pictures of adorable penguins all day
if you can count how many penguins are
in this image you can science through
projects like these you can help us
understand earth humanity and our place
in the universe by contributing to human
knowledge the mysteries of the universe
are out there for anyone to unlock where the sky is truly limitless thank you
call myself a professional Martian
because I work on rocks and robots on
the red planet for a living and I
managed to find a way to do so that ties
in another passion in my life
photography when I was a kid I saw the
movie Big Bird in Japan where our
beloved yellow friend meets Kaguya Jemez
the Japanese princess of the Moon and I
was utterly fascinated by this and after
watching it I went outside every clear
night granted that’s not necessarily
very often if you grow up in Seattle but
I went out every set every night to
stare at the moon and I realized over
time when I would go out and stare at
the sky that it wasn’t actually the
Stars that caught my attention but
rather the little points of light that
were the other worlds in our solar
system to think that we had spaceships
watching the things that went on on
these other worlds absolutely captivated
me and then in 1997 NASA landed a
mission called Pathfinder on Mars
Pathfinder unfolded like a robotic
flower and out of it drove a shoebox
sized Rover called Sojourner the first
Rover that humans had ever sent to
another planet the Pathfinder Lander
captured a series of images of Sojourner
driving off the lander platform and onto
the surface of Mars and NASA released
these in these images as an animated gif
back in 1997 before animated gifts were
all over the internet and I was hooked I
could not believe that we had the
ability to put a robot on top of a
rocket launch it toward a moving target
140 million miles away land that robot
in a specific place on that moving
target and command that robot to not
only conduct scientific investigations
of specific rocks but of specific pieces
of those rocks on that moving target a
hundred and forty million miles away
that blew my mind it still blows my mind
even now that I work on these Rovers on
Mars every day and I knew firmly thanks
to Sojourner that I wanted to be
involved in space exploration
specifically involved in Mars so skip
ahead 10 years a couple of college
degrees and dozens of emails to Mars
scientists begging for jobs and I ended
up working for a NASA subcontractor that
built most of the cameras that we’ve
ever sent to the Red Planet I was
brought on as a targeting specialist for
the context camera on NASA’s Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter and this was a
really interesting mix of photography
and science as far as the job was
concerned it was my job to pick what the
camera would take pictures of each day
while taking photographic basics into
account like lighting and Composition
and after weeks of training I finally
when that image came back to earth it
was an overwhelming feeling knowing that
I was the first human to ever see this
little piece of Mars like this for a
brief moment I had a very intimate
relationship with this tiny bit of Mars
and it was beautiful even though I’d
looked at thousands of images of Mars
before that point the feeling of looking
at an image that I had taken was
entirely different because it was the
culmination of years of dreams and hard
work all coming together in the form of
this single photograph and for the next
few years I got to experience this
intimate relationship with Mars on a
daily basis every day I would come into
work in the morning and I would get to
look at the pictures that we had taken
with the context camera the day before
and I was often the first human to ever
see these pictures and that’s an almost
indescribable feeling it’s kind of like
getting to see Star Wars before anyone
else on the planet so I would hope that
you would know that looking at a
photograph versus taking a photograph or
seeing something for yourself is a very
different things for example the feeling
that I got from looking at images of the
Northern Lights did not prepare me at
all for the overwhelming sense of
emotion and wonder that I felt at seeing
them in person for the first time or the
reactions that I see from people when
they look at Cassini images of Saturn
these are truly stunning images that
definitely elicit a reaction from people
but the audible reaction front
well when they look through a telescope
and see Saturn and its rings with their
own eyes for the first time is a whole
nother level people gasp they exclaim oh
wow they smile and go back to the
telescope eyepiece for more so now let
me let you in on a little secret
you don’t have to work for NASA to get
this sense of wonder or to explore the
cosmos for yourself you can even help
NASA explore the universe you can target
your own images of Mars right now with a
camera orbiting the red planet called
high rise through their website hi wish
you can pick what pieces you’d like to
take pictures of on Mars and they’ll
send you an email when those pictures
have been taken meanwhile on the Martian
surface
amateur image processors create stunning
mosaics of images from the Mars rovers
whose raw images are released to the
public on a daily basis on NASA’s
website farther out in the solar system
nASA has specifically called for help
from the public in processing images
from the Juno spacecraft at Jupiter to
help us understand the mystery and
beauty of the largest planet in our
solar system and if you have a telescope
and a lot of patience you might even be
able to discover a comet that will bear
your name for the rest of human history
so you too can join in on the emotional
journey of data of discovery through
roarysaurus a citizen science project to
help us better understand the Northern
Lights amateur astronomers helped
discover a new type of Aurora that has
been officially named Steve
it’s not even an acronym it’s just
called Steve you can help scientists
explore through another project called
Zooniverse which has 81 separate
projects right now spanning everything
from space to literature to medicine you
can help scientists discover planets
around other stars or map out features
on the surface of Mars if space isn’t
your thing you can help scientists learn
how to fight antibiotic resistant
bacteria or you can help us learn more
about Earth’s climate history by reading
through climate records from 19th
century sailing ships you can even help
scientists understand changes in penguin
populations through the penguin watch
program I mean who wouldn’t want to look
at pictures of adorable penguins all day
if you can count how many penguins are
in this image you can science through
projects like these you can help us
understand earth humanity and our place
in the universe by contributing to human
knowledge the mysteries of the universe
are out there for anyone to unlock where the sky is truly limitless thank you
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