While a NASA robot is expected to land on Mars in September 2016, an engineer tied to the project is landing at Thompson Rivers University this weekend to lecture about the Red Planet.
Luke Dubord of NASA’s Jet Propulsion laboratory in Pasadena, will be at TRU’s House of Learning tomorrow night to discuss development efforts of the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity, the Mars Lander InSight and the future of NASA’s Mars exploration.
Dubord’s educational background is in aeronautical and astronautical engineering and he has worked on Curiosity, a rover which is currently on the surface of Mars, as well as InSight, a robot expected to launch in March 2016.
The lecture, which is hosted by the Big Little Science Centre in room 190 of the House of Learning is from 6 p.m. to 6:45 p.m. for youngsters and families, followed by a full lecture from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
In anticipation of the event, KTW has prepared some facts, you may not have known about the Red Planet, as provided by NASA.
Insight into Mars:
• Length of day: 41 minutes longer than Earth’s day, at 24 hours, 37 minutes
• Diameter: about half the size of Earth at 6,791 kilometres
• Gravity: about a third of Earth’s
• Average temperature: -63 C
• Number of moons: 2
• Length of year: 687 Earth days
Tickets to the lecture are $5 per person or $10 per family. They are available at The Big Little Science Centre, 655 Holt St., or online at blscs.org.
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