WWU professor helps craft marching orders for Mars rover

These are exciting days for the earthbound scientists who study Mars. Data from a NASA rover creeping across the red planet’s surface is rewriting our understanding of Mars’ geological history and offering tantalizing clues to the possibility that the planet once harbored life — or, possibly, still does.

One of those scientists is Melissa Rice, a Sammamish native who recently joined Western Washington University as an assistant professor of geology. She’s part of a team of 400 scientists nationwide guiding the rover Curiosity across the surface of Mars.