Comments on: Living on Mars in Utah

By: Amy Knudson

Amy Knudson — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 05:55:52 +0000

Why did it take me so long to notice this? Yes, I was there, I was part of this great event. The best part was that we were all regulars. There were days when the team was almost entirely female without any planning or coordination. It only took a little tweaking of schedules to actually make it happen. I wasn’t in the pictures because I work remotely from my home in Seattle.

I am away at a retreat this week with the Planetary Science Institute, and I was noticing again how wonderful it is to be surrounded by smart, competent, fantastically talented planetary scientists who also happen to be women. I feel very lucky to be a part of this community.

Oh, in regards to what my title means – I operate the Mini-TES instrument, which is short for Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer. We look at the world in the infrared (kind of like using infrared goggles) but we also separate the temperature up into lots of different bands, like the different colors in a visible light picture. You can use the data to show differences in temperature and also mineral composition. It’s cool, especially on Mars.

By: Miriam Goldstein

Miriam Goldstein — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 20:13:47 +0000

I actually did look for her, but I think I only checked the photos. I can't even imagine what her title means, but for some reason my mental image involves Legos, which can't possible be right. Yay Sis. Knudson! (for any readers that are very very confused at my plethora of siblings, Eric & I were both in a coed literary fraternity.)

By: Kirsten

Kirsten — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 19:28:39 +0000

… and if you look a little further down the page you linked to, you’ll see that our own Sister Amy Trueba Knudson (K’92?) was on the team as the Mini-TES Payload Uplink Lead. I don’t know what that is, but it sounds important!