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MarsQuest
• When: June 1 - Aug. 31
• Where: Park Place, 5870 E. Broadway Blvd.
• Hours: 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. Monday - Saturday; noon-5 p.m. Sunday. Open for private functions after 7 p.m.
• Admission: $4.50 adults; $3.50 children; $4 seniors.
• Information: Call 792-9985, extention 105.
• Tours: Include a half-hour guided tour, a half-hour activity and a half-hour explore on your own.
- Reservations:Call number above to reserve a tour
- Tour Times: 10 a.m., noon, 2 p.m., 4 p.m.
- Price: $4 per person, 10 person minimum.
- Group Rates: Call for more information, special packages and corporate group rental rates available .
MarsQuest Planetary Show
Presented in conjunction with the MarsQuest exhibit at Park Place.
• When: Starting June 6
• Where:Flandrau Science Center and Planetarium 1601 E. Univeristy Blvd. Univeristy of Arizona campus.
• Information:Call 621-7827 or 621-4515 or visit www.flandrau.org. Narrated by Patrick Stewart of Star Trek fame, this show traces Mars through history, examining the Mars of our time, and predicting the Mars of the future. What will it take to have a manned mission to Mars and what will the first landing be like.
• Show times: 2:30 p.m. Monday-Sunday; 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday.
• Admission: $5 adults; $4 children; $4.50 seniors, students, military, UA staff.
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Special Section | Friday, April 6, 2001
The Tucson Chidren's Museum presents
MarsQuest
MarsQuest includes:
* The Tucson Childen's Museum's 4,500 square foot touring exhibition showing at Park Place, 5870 E. Broadway.
* A 40-minute planetarium show at the Flandrau Science Center on the University of Arizona campus.
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On July 4, 1997, a spacecraft from Earth unfurled a large parachute and descended through the thin Martian atmosphere. Just above the surface, huge airbags inflated to help soften the impact. As it hit the reddish soil, Mars Pathfinder bounced again and again until it finally came to rest. For the first time in a generation, a spacecraft beamed back an image of a never-before seen Martian landscape. Thus began the most far-reaching and comprehensive exploration of a planet other than Earth.
Over the next decade and beyond, the United States and other nations will undertake the uprecedented exploration of the planet Mars.
Share in the excitement and discoveries!
Visit MarsQuest!
Heads up; hands on
Control the rate of a martian volcano's eruption. |
Providing visitors with a first-hand sense of exploration, MarsQuest fulfills the Tucson Children's Museum's mission to present high quality, interactive exhibits that inspire children and adults alike.
Visit Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the solar system; Valles Marineris, a canyon as long as the United States is wide; and Ares Vallis, the Pathfinder landing site.
Send commands to maneuver a rover replica of Pathfinder's Sojourner over a simulated Martian landscape.
Experiment with collage puzzles to learn how scientists assemble larger planetary views from many small images.
Handle simulated Martian soil from the Johnson Space Center in Houston and experience a large-scale volcanic eruption.
Ares Vallis
While Mars appears dry and barren today, an enormous flood once ravaged the plains of Ares Vallis. As a result, this broad flat plain is studded with geologically diverse rocks that the flood moved there from remote locations. Ares Vallis is an ideal location for surface exploration vehicles.
Here you can:
* Learn about catastropic floods on Mars.
* Compare elevation and temperature gradients on the red planet.
* Program a rover to move across a Martian landscape.
* Grab a joystick and explore a virtual 3-D version of the Pathfinder landing site.
* Puff simulated soil into a solar cell and notice the decrease in energy efficiency.
* Select color channels of a high-resolution image from the Hubble Space Telescope.
* See a full-sized model of the Sojourner rover inspecting the Mars rock, Yogi.
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Click above to see a giant landscape portait of Ares Vallis, the Pathfinder landing site area. |
Imagination Theater area
Imagine a journey to Mars. Watch a 16-minute video that includes high-definition imagery of the destination sites in the exhibit. See images that have never before been presented to the public on high-definition, digital equipment. The Space Science Institute produced this film in partnership with Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America Inc., CBS Inc. and the American Museum of Natural History.
Olympic Mons
As the largest volcano in the solar system, Olympus Mons (below) dwarfs any volcano found on Earth.
Here you can:
* Look through a video telescope to see skyscrapers on Earth and Olympus Mons in approximate scale.
* Adjust the airflow of a simulated volcano and control the rate of eruption.
* Touch scale models of Olympus Mons and the Hawaiian volcanoes.
* See a 3 x 4 foot sample of Pahoehoe lava and small samples of other types of basaltic lava.
North Pole Area
This region of Mars is characterized by vast sheets of frozen water and carbon dioxide ice surrounded by a vast sea of sand dunes. Winds generated at the boundary between the ice sheets and somewhat warmer dunes move massive amounts of sand in an endless dance around the pole.
Valles Marineris
Valles Marineris (right) is a massive crack in the surface of Mars that forms a canyon as long as the continental United States.
In this section of the MarsQuest exhibit, you can:
* Discover how Valles Marineris was formed and compare it in size to the United States.
* Touch a topographically accurate model of Valles Marineris.
* Create a 3-D surface after scanning an image of the terrain with a laser beam.
* Create eddies in a five-foot portion of the Valles Marineris model filled with fog.
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