The Science Guy helps project fly

Next to the model representing how the Martian sundial will work, TV science program host and alum Bill Nye discusses the project with Alex Walters, 7, at a press conference in the Space Sciences Building April 21. Behind them is a photo of the Martian surface taken during the Mars Pathfinder mission in July 1997. Photographs by Charles Harrington/University Photography

By David Brand

You could call it Martian Standard Time. The new "time zone" takes effect in January 2002 when a sundial lands on the red planet aboard NASA's 2001 Mars Surveyor.

The idea for the sundial originated with Bill Nye, host of public television's "Bill Nye the Science Guy," and last week he was at Cornell to unveil the sundial at a press conference in the Space Sciences Building. The sundial design team also included Cornell astronomers Jim Bell, who was co-host of the press conference, and Steven Squyres; and Tyler Nordgren, an artist and astronomer at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz., who got his Ph.D. at Cornell in 1997.

Nye, a 1977 Cornell engineering graduate, explained that the idea for the sundial came to him when he was looking over design plans for four instruments that make up the Athena Precursor Experiment, or APEX, being developed for NASA's Mars Surveyor 2001 lander under the leadership of Squyres, professor of astronomy. He noticed a small square that was to be used as a test pattern to calibrate the spacecraft's color panoramic camera, called Pancam, and suggested it could be turned into a sundial.

"He sent an e-mail asking me if I wanted to design the first sundial on Mars," recalled sundial expert Woodruff Sullivan, professor of astronomy at the University of Washington, speaking by telephone at the press conference. "I sent one back asking, 'Does it rain in Seattle?'"

With Sullivan's design, the University of Washington physics laboratory devised detailed drawings for making the sundial. Much of the manufacturing work is being done at Arizona State University in Tempe. The sundial is to be delivered to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., late this summer.

The Martian sundial will be located near the planet's equator, though a final landing site for the Surveyor mission hasn't yet been chosen. Once the spacecraft has landed, the Pancam will monitor the shadow, and, from that, scientists will calculate its position. Then the sundial lines can be put into the correct position and superimposed over the image of the sundial as it appears on the World Wide Web.

The sundial will be just 3.25 inches square and will weigh slightly more than 2 ounces. Black, gray and white rings in the center and color tiles in the corners will be used to adjust the brightness and tint of pictures taken by the pancam. Two replicas of the sundial are being made, one to serve as an engineering model and the other to be placed in the Smithsonian Institution.

The sundial was designed with the help of 160 children from across the United States and around the world. Sheri Klug, director of Arizona State University's Mars Education and Outreach Program, told the press conference by telephone how the design evolved following a 1998 appeal to teachers. Elementary, middle and high school students from six states and several foreign countries sent in drawings, essays and suggestions for the sundial's design.

"This generation will probably be the ones to go out and explore, and they'll find this artifact they helped make when they get there," Klug said. "From the onset, it was an extremely intriguing opportunity to involve the kids in the design of this."