It is with great pleasure that NRC announces the “Marsville Small Planet Contest 2010”. Courtesy of astronomer (and asteroid hunter) Dave Balam, NRC’s Canadian National Marville Program is thrilled to offer this unique competition to our participating students from across Canada. The prize is simple - the winner will have a small planet named after them!

Download this flyer to find out more: marsville-contest-2010_e.pdf 

We are pleased to post this news from Eric Chisholm, regional coordinator for Marsville Victoria:

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Hi all,
I have assembled a group of eager Marsville mentors based here in Victoria at the NRC - Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics. This year we have a mix of scientists, engineers and educators to field any and all questions arising from your group. The group has some excellent depth and pretty remarkable achievements behind it; including discovering moons within our solar system, hunting for exo-planets, teaching in universities and working on actual Mars missions bundled together with years of experience engaging younger students in the fields of space and astronomy. We are looking forward to fielding many question this year, the more the better (we are anticipating questions from both teachers and students)!

We have created two e-mail accounts to handle the traffic with addresses as follows:

EastMarsville@nrc.gc.ca  (for Marsville Ottawa, Toronto, New Brunswick and Newfoundland)

WestMarsville@nrc.gc.ca   (For Marsville Winnipeg, Vancouver, Victoria and Dawson Creek)

Good luck to all Marsville sites!

As part of the Marsville adventure, teams must design a Canadian National Marsville Mission Patch. Mission Patches should demonstrate the mission’s focus on science and technology and Canada’s role in Mars exploration. Each team’s patch will be included on the annual Marsville poster.

DEADLINE: February 24, 2010. All mission patches must be uploaded to the team blog page by this date to appear on the poster. For assistance uploading your patch, contact your regional coordinator.