Shrewsbury man's NASA career goes out of this world
Scientist Doctor Gareth Morgan's career has gone out of this world since his days as a schoolboy in Shrewsbury – in fact he's now exploring other planets.
For Dr Morgan has led a NASA team on a ground-breaking project to capture new 3D images of Mars.
Doctor Morgan, 32, attended Meole Brace School and Shrewsbury Sixth Form College.
He now works as a planetary scientist for the Centre for Earth and Planetary Studies at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. For the past two years, Doctor Morgan, originally from Radbrook, has led a team on a NASA-funded Mars exploration project.
They have used radar on board a NASA spacecraft in orbit Mars studying the planet's underground geology. Dr Morgan and his five colleagues were able to make maps of buried flood channels on Mars.
The result of the team's work, published today, is the first time buried channels have been three-dimensionally mapped on a planet other than the Earth.
Speaking to the Shropshire Star, Dr Morgan said the research was all part of the search for life on Mars.
He said: "NASA's motto is 'follow the water'. All of its robots and spacecrafts are used to characterise the water. If we can understand that it gives us clues about life."
