I Became A Citizen of Mars Today

I know, I know, you’re saying, “What? She can’t become a citizen on Mars. What is going on here? This is craziness!”

I promise you, I am not crazy. I did in fact become a Martian today. I did so via an online program called Be A Martian which is run by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It is a game of sorts where you make a profile as a Martian citizen and then get to travel all over Mars. The purpose of the game is to have the Martian “citizens” look at pictures taken by the rovers Spirit and Opportunity as well as by the Mars Odyssey Orbiter and the Mars Global Surveyor Orbiter.  The participants help to count the craters, align the photos, and tag the images based on what is seen.

The pictures provided by the orbiters and rovers sum up to a jumble of images from all over the surface of Mars with no easy way to organize them. That is why this program is so cool. It provides a fun way to look at Mars and but is also productive. Believe me, it is hard to find a computer game that can be deemed productive but this one is. 

Courtesy of http://beamartian.jpl.nasa.gov/

This profile is the first thing I created as I became a citizen of Mars. I got to pick what kind of citizen I was going to be. As you can see I picked “Life-long Learner” because I think that knowledge is power and I enjoy learning.

The next thing I did after becoming a Martian was to attempt to map Mars.

Courtesy of http://beamartian.jpl.nasa.gov/

To do so I looked at the grayscale picture and the color picture presented to me. Each was taken by one of NASA’s exploring devices. My job was to align the images so that things like craters and rocks line up. That way NASA then compiles the images processed by thousands of people to create a comprehensive map of Mars.

Following my mapping expedition I tried counting craters.

Courtesy of http://beamartian.jpl.nasa.gov/

It turned out that counting craters is a very simple job. All I had to do was click on each crater in the image and size the circle to match the size of the crater. This way NASA can know how many craters are where and use that information to learn about Mars.

My final project of the day was to tag images.

Courtesy of http://beamartian.jpl.nasa.gov/

An image would be given to me on the screen and I would look over it. Next, I would select the categories on the side and pick the tags representing what I saw in the picture. (Look at the image above if this isn’t making sense).

Whew! What an exhausting first day on Mars. It was, however, a very productive day. Look at all the badges I earned! 

If you would like to become a Mars Citizen visit: http://beamartian.jpl.nasa.gov/welcome

I hope you have lots of fun experimenting with the perks of being a Martian. Have a great day!