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Figure 1 | Figure 2 |
27 August 2006
Thomas A. Mutch has been called an explorer of two worlds. Known to
colleagues as Tim, he was born on August 26, 1931. An avid mountaineer as
well as a scientist, he climbed in the Canadian Rockies and the Himalayas,
and had a passion for exploration in all its forms. Mutch became a
geologist after majoring in history at Princeton; he received a master's
degree from Rutgers and a doctorate from Princeton. In 1960 he became a
geology professor at Brown University, later serving as department
chairman.
In the late 1960s, Mutch applied the geologic discipline called
stratigraphy to the study of features on the Moon, work that led to his
writing the landmark book, The Geology of the Moon. Mutch went on
to become the leader of the Viking Lander Imaging Team, which had
responsibility for obtaining and interpreting the first images from the
surface of Mars. Following the successful touchdowns of Viking 1 on July
20, 1976 and Viking 2 a few weeks later, the twin landers transmitted a
total of more than 4,000 images from the Martian surface.
Mutch had an ability to inspire those around him and a dedication to
involving young people in the experience of exploration. He helped create
the Viking Student Intern program, a pioneering educational activity since
duplicated by many planetary missions, which allowed several dozen college
students to participate in the Viking mission. At Brown, where he taught a
seminar in exploration, he invited students to participate in a Himalayan
climbing expedition. In May 1978, Mutch led a team of 32 students,
faculty, and alumni to the21,900-foot Indian peak Devistan; 24 of them,
including Mutch, made it to the summit.
In October 1980, Mutch died on the slopes of Mount Nun in the Himalayas,
following a climbing accident while descending from the 23,410-foot
summit. At the time he was on leave from Brown, serving as NASA's
Associate Administrator for Space Science. His legacy endures in the many
minds and spirits he helped nurture. In the planetary science community
his former students include R. Stephen Saunders, James W. Head, III,
Raymond E. Arvidson, and James B. Garvin. In 1981, NASA administrator
Robert Frosch announced that the Viking 1 lander had been renamed the
Mutch Memorial Station, and unveiled a stainless steel plaque that is to
be placed on the lander, someday, by a team of explorers. The inscription
on the plaque reads, "Dedicated to the memory of Tim Mutch, whose
imagination, verve, and resolve contributed greatly to the exploration of
the Solar System."
Located at 0.6°N, 55.3°W, Mutch Crater is about 211 kilometers
(131 miles) in diameter. Naming of this crater for Tim Mutch was approved
by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 1985.
The main image is a mosaic of Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter
Camera (MOC) red wide angle images acquired during the MOC Geodesy Campaign
in May 1999. The white boxes show the location of figures 1 and 2.
Figure 1 is a mosaic of MOC and lower-resolution Mars Odyssey THEMIS VIS
images that cover a smaller, unnamed crater located in west-central Mutch
Crater. Figure 2 is a portion of the mosaic of the small, unnamed crater,
showing landslide deposits formed when material slumped off the crater
wall. The source alcoves of the landslides are well defined, as are
longitudinal troughs and ridges on the surface of the landslides. These
mass movements occurred long after the crater was formed, judging by the
difference in the number of small impact craters on their surfaces and on
the nearby floor of the crater.
The view of the landslides in the northeast corner of the small, unnamed
crater in Mutch was acquired by the MGS MOC just a few days ago, on 23
August 2006, to commemorate the 75th birthday of Tim Mutch on 26 August
2006.
Noted space writer Andrew Chaikin (http://www.andrewchaikin.com),
a former Tim Mutch student, suggested the 23 August 2006 MGS MOC image
and contributed to the text of this release.