Contact: Sammy McDavid
A Mississippi State graduate now directing a major NASA facility will discuss the space agency's Mars Rover Mission during a Thursday [Oct. 2] public program at the university.
The presentation by Ronald Greeley begins at 1:30 p.m. in 102 Hilbun Hall. Among the nation's leading authorities on lunar and planetary studies, the Gulfport native also has been involved in the Galileo Jupiter and European Space Agency's Mars Express missions.
Greeley is a Regents' Professor of Geological Sciences at Arizona State University and director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Regional Planetary Image Facility, also at Arizona State.
The visit to his alma mater is sponsored by the geosciences department, which was known as the department of geology and geography when he received bachelor's and master's degrees in 1962 and 1963, respectively.
In addition to his MSU degrees, Greeley holds a doctorate from the University of Missouri at Rolla. After graduating from Rolla in 1966, he went to work for the Standard Oil Co. of California.
Through military duty, he was assigned in 1967 to NASA's Ames Research Center near Mountain View, Calif., where he worked in a civilian capacity on the Apollo missions to the moon. Remaining with NASA to conduct research in planetary geology, he was part of the agency's shift in the 1970s to an emphasis on Mars, Earth's nearest planetary neighbor.
Greeley joined the Arizona State faculty in the late 1970s with a joint professorship in geology and the Center for Meteorite Studies. His current research areas include, among others, wind processes on Earth, Mars and Venus, and the photogeographical mapping of planets and their satellites.
He is the author or co-author of more than a dozen books and 240 research reports.
For more information, telephone the geosciences department at (662) 325-3915.