火星天空之眼

布雷特·布拉利

鲍勃Haberle, '74 Meteorology, '75 MA Meteorology. 图片来源:Robert Bain

When the Perseverance rover landed on Mars, 鲍勃Haberle knew exactly how the team of scientists and engineers who got it there must have felt—because he’s felt it himself. In his 38-year career with NASA, the 圣何塞州立大学 alumnus has been part of four Mars missions, studying the red planet’s atmosphere and even helping develop a cutting-edge model for predicting weather patterns.

“有 nothing quite like it,” said Haberle, '74 BS, '75 MS, Meteorology. “有 a lot of tension, and you feel a lot of pressure hoping things go right. 当你 成功，令人振奋.” 

Haberle’s years of gathering and interpreting data have led to a better understanding of Mars’s winds, temperatures, dust storms, clouds and even climate change.

But long before he had any interest in the extraterrestrial, Haberle was studying 一个更局部的天气系统:地球的. 他获得了学士学位和硕士学位 圣何塞州立大学的气象学 分别是1974年和1975年. 

Choosing meteorology was rather serendipitous—and Haberle is not afraid to admit that the first time he heard the term, he guessed it was the study of meteors. 幸运的是, his then girlfriend (now wife), Jovita Haberle, '72 社会科学, '91 MA 教育, knew a bit more about the discipline and encouraged him to give it a try.

After all, 鲍勃Haberle thought he might 一个 day want to become a pilot, and a basic knowledge 天气系统 could come in handy. 然后，在攻读硕士学位时， something happened that transformed Haberle’s plan entirely.

I think it’s fair to say that my San José State training in meteorology helped me develop a world-class model that led to the establishment of a national treasure that continues to make new discoveries, pi一个er new areas of research, attract students and postdocs—and provide educational inspiration for future generations.                鲍勃Haberle

“I found a preprint of a paper about the atmosphere of Venus, and it suddenly dawned on me that other planets had atmospheres, and they’re a lot different from ours,” 他记得. “I thought, wow, wouldn’t it be fun to study those and how they work—and 然后将它们与地球大气进行比较?”

He brought his newfound interest to his thesis adviser, Chris Riegel, a faculty member 在气象系. Riegel immediately connected him with James Pollack, a scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, who guided Haberle on writing his thesis 火星上的沙尘暴.

That marked the beginning of a career in deep space exploration and discovery. 

After earning his PhD at the University of Washington, Haberle returned to NASA at Ames, where he first used his 菠菜网lol正规平台 meteorology training to find a new way to predict 火星上的天气. 

In the same way a pilot needs to know the weather conditions before landing a plane at a destination, NASA scientists needed to know Mars’s weather before rovers entered 着陆点的大气. 哈伯勒开始和波拉克一起研究一个模型 that could make those predictions back in the mid-'70s and continued after Pollack’s 1993年死亡人数. 

“At the time, it was the only model in the world that could predict the weather and climate of Mars, and we used it to predict winds, temperatures and pressures at the Viking, 探路者 and 好奇心 landing sites,” Haberle explained.

His ideas and data analyses—from 探路者, the first ever robotic rover on Mars, to 好奇心, which is still gathering data today—have helped scientists all over the world understand the planet's atmosphere and climate.

He has helped show that storms on Mars can cross the equator (it was speculated before, 但好奇号证明了这一点). The thin clouds in the atmosphere play a larger role in warming and cooling the planet than first thought, and climate change most certainly occurred, paving the way for the Perseverance to search for signs of ancient life.

As far as his weather prediction model goes, it has inspired the development of many 全世界都是这样. Today, about a dozen or so exist, Haberle noted.

“I think it’s fair to say that my San José State training in meteorology helped me develop a world-class model that led to the establishment of a national treasure that continues to make new discoveries, pi一个er new areas of research, attract students and postdocs—and provide educational inspiration for future generations.”

如今，哈伯勒兼职为美国宇航局工作. 但他对工作的热情可能是 as strong as it was back when he first laid eyes on that paper. 

“非常壮观，”他说. “你知道，这真的会让人起鸡皮疙瘩? You realize this is what human beings are capable of doing.

"It’s a good thing, exploring our universe, meeting the challenges associated with that, acquiring knowledge and improving our understanding of where we are. 这都是 非常酷的. It’s part of an enterprise that benefits humanity in the end.”

哈伯勒的火星转型任务

探路者

启动→ 12月. 4, 1996
登陆→ 1997年7月4日
Haberle helped determine the tools and equipment 探路者 would need in order to 分析火星的大气和气候. 然后，他解释探路者发送的数据 回来. 

火星全球探测器

启动→ 11月. 7, 1996
进入轨道→ 9月. 11, 1997
Haberle studied the atmosphere and how it interacted with the surface of Mars. 

好奇心 

启动→ 11月. 26, 2011
登陆→ 8月. 2012年5月5日(正在执行任务)
Haberle collaborated with scientists from Spain in designing the meteorology instruments to further study Mars’s atmosphere and played a role in the operational aspects of 任务.

火星勘测轨道器 

启动→ 8月. 12, 2005
进入轨道→ 2006年3月10日(正在执行任务)
As co-investigator on the camera team, Haberle helped interpret satellite imagery 天气系统.