Follow The Rocks

Phil opening a box Phil pulling a rock out of a box Phil removing a rock from its wrapping Every day, new Rock Around the World mail arrives at the Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State University from across the globe. Sometimes there are only a few packages, and sometimes there are hundreds of packages!

Theresa numbers the rock We give each rock a Rock Around The World (RATW) number which is comprised of the date we received the rock and its own 5-digit ID number.

Theresa bags the rock The rock goes into its own, labeled bag.

Next we put all of the information received from each person into our database of RATW participants.

Lee takes the bagged rock into the spectrometer lab The rocks then go into the spectrometer laboratory, where each waits its turn to be analyzed.

Lee puts the rock into the oven The night before each rock is ready to be analyzed, it spends 8 hours in the oven. The reason we do this is to make sure that there is no moisture in the rock. This allows the spectrometer to give us better, more accurate readings. We also want to make sure that the rocks are a constant temperature.

Laurie puts the rock into the spectrometer The rock's spectrum is taken The notebook where recordings are stored A spectrum is taken of the rock. This data is calibrated to make sure it is accurate. It then gets recorded in a notebook.

The data is entered into the computer The graph is generated This spectral data is used to produce the "squiggly line graph" that is then put on the Rock Around The World website.

Laurie photographs the rock A picture is taken of each rock.

Phil surrounded by rocks This is where the rocks first ended up...in Dr. Christensen's office.

The rock storage room Laurie deposits the rock in its drawer Now, each rock is carefully filed away for scientists to use as they explore Mars.