astronomy

Sarah Milkovich

Sarah Milkovich is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Sarah Milkovich rather than just read about it. In short: Sarah Milkovich is lead of Science Operations for the Mars 2020 rover at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She was investigation scientist for the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Key takeaways

Sarah Milkovich belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Sarah Milkovich to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Sarah Milkovich from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Sarah Milkovich is lead of Science Operations for the Mars 2020 rover at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She was investigation scientist for the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Education Milkovich grew up in Ithaca, New York. Here she became interested in astronomy watching TV specials about spacecraft of Nova and PBS, and during vacations in northern Minnesota. She used to watch the Perseid Meteor Shower with her parents. Milkovich attended Phillips Exeter Academy, which she graduated in 1996. Whilst a high school student, she worked as an intern for the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft. She earned a bachelor's degree in planetary science at California Institute of Technology in 2000. She moved to Brown University, where she earned a master's degree and PhD in planetary geology in 2005.

Career Milkovich joined the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory after completed her PhD. There she has worked on the Mars Phoenix landing spacecraft, the Cassini–Huygens mission and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Her first rover was Curiosity, for which she was responsible for high-resolution imaging using HiRISE. She was most proud of the Mars Science Laboratory parachute image of Curiosity's landing. HiRISE allowed Milkovich and scientists to take turns to choose where images were taken, and took suggestions from the public. She featured on C-SPAN representing NASA to talk about developments in Curiosity. Milkovich is the lead Science systems Engineer for Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars 2020 rover. The rover is estimated to cost $2 billion. She regularly appears on online science podcasts and videos. She visits schools and gives public talks to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers. She has been a keynote speaker at Dragon Con in 2016 and 2018.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Sarah Milkovich

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Sarah Milkovich claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Sarah Milkovich before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Sarah Milkovich ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Sarah Milkovich

In research: Sarah Milkovich appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Sarah Milkovich in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Sarah Milkovich is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 21st-century American astronomers, 21st-century American women scientists, American astrophysicists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Sarah Milkovich outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Sarah Milkovich in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Sarah Milkovich means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Sarah Milkovich out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Sarah Milkovich in simple terms?

Sarah Milkovich is lead of Science Operations for the Mars 2020 rover at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She was investigation scientist for the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Why does Sarah Milkovich matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Sarah Milkovich?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Sarah Milkovich.