WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.000
Aren from Vermont: The twin Mars rovers are exploring only two of what I assume are several potential future sites.

00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:17.000
Is there already a long list of sites for MRO to scout, and if so, how will this spacecraft help you narrow down that list?

00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:24.000
There are hundreds of sites already on the list. People have been studying Mars for, you know, 20 years or more now,

00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:29.000
and a number of places have been identified that are interesting in the geology.

00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:36.000
They are sites where we think there may have been, where we can see that there was water in the past.

00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:46.000
With the rovers recently, we've seen water, evidence of water in the past; not so far in the distant past. So those are kinds of places

00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:51.000
we might want to look at for landing sites in the future. With our mission,

00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:55.000
we're going to be getting a lot clearer picture of what those sites look like.

00:00:55.000 --> 00:01:02.000
We're going to see, in terms of visual images, we're going to see things at five times the resolution of what we've looked at in the past.

00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:11.000
So we'll be able to get an even clearer idea of what the layering looks like there. Does it look like the layers have been deposited

00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:21.000
by water or by wind? We'll be able to look at the composition of the surface so we can see, are there places where water has formed

00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:23.000
those minerals? Minerals that have formed in the presence of water.

00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:28.000
So we're going to be getting a lot clearer picture of the surface and we'll

00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:34.000
be both narrowing down that very long list that we have now and undoubtedly adding new sites to it.

00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:38.000
Well, that's about all the time we have, Dr. Smrekar. Thank you so much for joining us.

00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:42.000
I'm sure our viewers will be watching this mission with even more excitement now.

00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:44.000
Well, thanks. It's my pleasure.

00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:49.000