In today’s Academic Minute, Dr. Darby Dyar of Mount Holyoke College explains one of the more spectacular instruments aboard the Mars Science Lab’s Curiosity rover.
Darby Dyar is a professor of astronomy at Mount Holyoke College where she specializes in mineral spectroscopy. Her research seeks to understand how hydrogen and oxygen are distributed throughout our solar system, particularly in terrestrial bodies such as the Earth, the Moon, Mars, and the parent bodies of meteorites. Dyar is currently a participating scientist on NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission. She holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.