Associate Professor of Geology Selby Cull-Hearth, who served on the science teams for the Mars Phoenix lander and the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer, was among the experts quoted in a Christian Science Monitor article about "
From the article:
“There are some deep existential questions that looking at the comparative histories of the planets can help answer,” says Selby Cull-Hearth, a planetary scientist at ճԹ in Pennsylvania. For example, she says, “One of the great driving questions of our existence is, why are we here? How did this happen?”
Cull-Hearth studies the mineralogy and geochemistry of the Martian surface, using data from satellites in orbit around Mars and robots landed on the surface. Her specialty is visible- to near-infrared spectroscopy, and she's particularly interested in the role of salts and liquid water on modern Mars.