The dusty, purple-red vistas of Mars look almost like an extraterrestrial Old West. Fitting, then, that Prof. Jim Bell, astronomy, leader of the team responsible for the images, stands on the frontier of planetary imaging.

Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity have been sending home pictures from the Red Planet nearly every sol (a Mars day, 24 hours and 39 minutes long) since they landed in January of 2004. Bell leads the Pancam color camera team behind the rovers’ images.

Bell uses data obtained from telescopes and spacecraft missions to study the geology and mineralogy of planets, asteroids and comets.

Planetary scientists use spectrometers, which can detect light waves beyond the visible spectrum, to glean information about the geological and atmospheric conditions on other planets. If scientists can get more wavelength coverage, Bell explained, they can discern minerals and particles in the atmosphere that cannot be detected using an optical telescope.

“Our eyes are spectrometers that just happen to see in three wavelengths instead of hundreds,” Bell said. The human eye detects red, green and blue wavelengths and interprets them into the colors we see. Spirit and Opportunity, however, detect only a single wavelength (or color) at a time.

Pancam’s color images are actually the product of six separate pictures taken one after another through a series of filters that allow only certain wavelengths to reach the rovers’ “eye”, called a Charge Coupled Device (CCD). The images are then combined to form “true color” images of Mars.

“This is an extremely exciting time for astronomy,” Bell said. Bell predicts that by 2015 the U.S. will be able to send humans out of lower orbit. The first astronauts on Mars, whose eyes will be the first true test of the CCDs’ color success, may make the 35 million mile trip in the next few decades.

Jim Bell: Lindsay MyronAs a child peering through his first telescope, Jim Bell might never have imagined he’d someday see the surface of Mars. “I’ve loved astronomy since I was a kid,” he said. Bell fondly remembers the Apollo moon landing missions of the 1960s.

Most young astronomers, if they are like Bell, don’t really learn what constitutes planetary science until they reach college. “It’s not as bland as you might imagine as a kid,” he said. A freshman research job introduced Bell to planetary atmospherics, which seemed to him “like meteorology, except on a different planet.”

For planetary scientists, who sit at the crossroads of astronomy, meteorology, chemistry, and physics, Bell said, “the Earth is our laboratory.” He explained, “you try to figure out what it is that you can figure out [on other planets].”

There are usually less than five astronomy majors per year at Cornell — most future astronomers browsing the job market will come from the physics department.

But Bell supports the department’s independence. “I think it’s a strength for us,” he said. “There is a large astronomy department and a large physics department,” he explained, “instead of a bonus astro department within physics.” Bell explained that because the job market for astronomers is small, the department does not mind that its extra graduation requirements tend to send students over to physics, which keeps their options relatively open. Some students though, he added, “just know they want to be astronomers.”

Students looking for jobs from either department may be facing a difficult time for the space American program, which Bell said “can’t be disentangled from politics.” Bell expressed concern over NASA’s recent cuts in environmental and climate monitoring, adding that funding for the space program, and for science in general, will be an important issue for the next president.

“It’s not a partisan issue,” Bell said. “Either candidate is going to have similar difficult choices.”

Space exploration excites the public, said Bell, but “not everyone is going to become an astrophysicist.” Just as well, he says, for the scientific frontier is broader than mineralogy, astronomy, or physics. “Science is a model for the way we have to act as a species in the future.” So-called eureka moments are rare, and incremental little-victories abound. “What a great model for living,” said Bell. “Keep learning, keep living, and keep asking questions.”