{"id":51856,"date":"2016-10-24T08:00:50","date_gmt":"2016-10-24T18:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=51856"},"modified":"2020-03-13T13:10:20","modified_gmt":"2020-03-13T23:10:20","slug":"two-uh-hilo-students-investigate-mars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2016\/10\/24\/two-uh-hilo-students-investigate-mars\/","title":{"rendered":"Two UH<\/abbr> Hilo students investigate “Mars”"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
\"\"
UH<\/abbr> Hilo students Niki Thomas and Colin Milovsoroff walk across a vast lava flow at Mauna Ulu on Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Island.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Two students from the University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at Hilo<\/a> are part of an international team of scientists working on a project to study the way future Mars astronauts might collect geology and biology samples when exploring the Red Planet.<\/p>\n

Colin Milovsoroff<\/strong>\u00a0and Nicolette “Niki” Thomas<\/strong> are working on a pre-mission survey on Mauna Ulu<\/a> on Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Island this week in preparation for the arrival of a team of international scientists in November. Mauna Ulu is located on the east rift zone of Kīlauea.<\/p>\n

The research project is called BASALT<\/abbr><\/a> (short for Biologic Analog Science Associated with Lava Terrains: Con-ops Development for Future Human Exploration of Mars) and includes a global team of scientists, engineers, mission operators and astronauts studying human-robotic exploration of Mars.<\/p>\n

Craters of the Moon National Monument, Idaho<\/h2>\n

In June, the BASALT<\/abbr> team began their fieldwork in Idaho to understand the habitability of volcanic terrains as analog environments for early and present-day Mars.<\/p>\n

Milovsoroff and Thomas were deployed for two weeks to the Craters of the Moon National Monument\u00a0near Arco, Idaho. The BASALT<\/abbr> team gathered there to sample altered basalts for the purposes of conducting both geochemical and microbial studies related to defining the habitability potential of Mars.<\/p>\n

Geologist Molovsoroff was with the team for the full two weeks and astrobiologist Thomas joined him for several days.<\/p>\n

“Colin made himself quite useful with the science team and was soon deemed indispensable,” says\u00a0John Hamilton<\/strong>, instructor of physics and astronomy and logistics manager at the Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems<\/a> in Hilo.<\/p>\n

Hamilton is the UH<\/abbr> Hilo principal investigator of the NASA<\/abbr> grant that funds the BASALT<\/abbr> project. It is one of only a few Planetary Science and Technology Through Analog Research grants awarded by NASA<\/abbr>.<\/p>\n

The Idaho work focused on collecting foundational data for the project. These data included hyperspectral imaging and a variety of in situ measurements to characterize the diversity of alteration products in the Craters of the Moon National Monument region.<\/p>\n

\"Students
Nicolette Thomas and Colin Milovsoroff<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The next trip to “Mars”<\/h2>\n

As Milovsoroff and Thomas finish up their pre-mission survey on Mauna Ulu this week, the international BASALT<\/abbr> team is readying for their next field deployment to Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Island. The team of scientists and students arrives in November for their next trip to “Mars.”<\/p>\n

—From UH<\/abbr> Hilo Stories<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

—By Susan Enright<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The students—one a geologist and one an astrobiologist—are studying the habitability of volcanic terrains as analog environments for Mars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[254,252,545,14,907],"class_list":["post-51856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","tag-biology","tag-geology","tag-physics-and-astronomy","tag-uh-hilo","tag-uh-hilo-stories","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51856"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113601,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51856\/revisions\/113601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}