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By NASA
Science Communication Intern – Goddard Space Flight Center
Laine Havens — now a senior at Cornell University and three-time NASA intern — grew up with a deep curiosity about how the universe works and a family that encouraged her to explore it. Throughout her childhood, Laine was immersed in science and exposed to wonderful science communicators by her mother and grandfather.
Her grandfather, a retired Kodak engineer, encouraged inquisition into all matters — whether it be the inner workings of a telescope or an abandoned hornet’s nest. Laine spent summer evenings watching Mythbusters or Cosmos, and her mother’s favorite science podcast soundtracked car trips. Inspired by the likes of Carl Sagan, Laine originally intended to become a scientist.
“I fell in love with physics in high school,” she says. “I figured I would study it in college all the way through to a Ph.D.”
As a three-time NASA communications intern, Laine Havens has translated science for an audience of millions of people around the globe through science writing, social media, and video production.Credit: Kristin Rutkowski Photography Laine enrolled at Cornell and originally majored in physics as planned. But then she discovered an even more exciting option serendipitously while browsing an academic catalog: science and technology studies.
“I was scrolling through looking for a different class, but then I saw science and technology studies and began reading more about what it involved,” Laine says. “It was all about studying science — the philosophy of what it is, and how it interacts with social, political, ethical, and historical dimensions.”
Seeing the new program made Laine realize she could connect her love for critical analysis with her interest in science. She changed her program to a double-major in science and technology studies and astronomy, resolving to not only study and communicate science but to better understand the factors that influence it.
Laine (left) is a senior at Cornell University, where she double-majors in astronomy and science and technology studies. She served as the student newspaper’s science editor and president of the Pants Improv Comedy group. Laine channeled her comedic skills for some of her NASA projects, including a reel that used puns to discuss the agency’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.Credit: Courtesy of Laine Havens Laine began by working as a science writer at her university’s student-run newspaper, The Cornell Daily Sun, where she later became the science editor. Meanwhile, she volunteered with The Physics Bus — basically a mini science museum on wheels with experiments for kids — and the Free Science Workshop, an after school program offering kids an opportunity to build things or craft using all sorts of materials and gadgets.
“When you first hear about physics there’s a huge stigma, so we aimed to expose kids to it at a young age so they would associate it with fun,” Laine says.
Laine volunteered with The Physics Bus to introduce kids to the subject in a fun environment, helping them see the magic of how the world works before they learn to associate physics with boredom or intimidation.Credit: Courtesy of Laine Havens During her junior year, Laine started searching for science communication internships and found one at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. She applied and was accepted to one focusing on NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Following her first internship, Laine came back for two more with the same team.
“Every day here at NASA is inspiring,” Laine says. “I’ve learned so much about both hard and soft skills involved in science communication.”
During her first internship, Laine leaned into her background as a science writer to cover engineering milestones and craft a Tumblr post that walks readers through the universe’s different stages. She also produced videos, including one about Goddard’s biggest clean room.
“Everybody let me take that and run,” Laine says. “I got to write the script, host the video, and edit it.” The video, which garnered millions of views on social media, was the first of several Laine created to engage NASA’s traditional audience while drawing in others who don’t typically follow NASA or science very closely.
In addition to her usual assigned tasks, Laine took opportunities to be involved in many different aspects of science storytelling. This photo was taken while Laine worked as a drone spotter, helping to ensure a camera-equipped drone wouldn’t damage sensitive space hardware.Credit: NASA/Sophia Roberts Throughout her internships, Laine also led tours to teach people more about Roman, helped manage a celebrity visit with John Rhys-Davies, wrote Roman team member profiles, helped gather drone footage, contributed to the release of the NASA documentary Cosmic Dawn, emceed an intern day event, and supported Live Shots — short, live TV interviews with NASA experts.
“It’s been cool to see a different side of things,” Laine says. “I ultimately want to keep doing what I’ve been doing, but also become engaged in how to make it better — the science of science communication.”
To others who are interested in interning at NASA, Laine recommends speaking up.
“Just ask people things, whether it’s for help or an opportunity,” she says. “Sometimes you don’t want to impose or risk looking dumb, but for the most part everyone wants to help you and see you succeed. I’m very grateful to the Roman team for making it feel like a safe space where I could speak up.”
In preparation for a clean room “Get Ready With Me” video, Laine shadowed NASA videographer Sophia Roberts in the clean room at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center, where she supported documentation of integration milestones for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Credit: NASA/Sophia Roberts Sometimes that meant pitching ideas that were ultimately rejected, but that still provided an opportunity for discussion. “Not everything works, but in talking about it you might think of something else that does work,” she says. “There’s no consequence to it, because either way you’re learning something from it — either from the process of seeing it through or figuring out why you can’t do it.”
The same advice applies to securing an internship in the first place.
“Don’t be afraid to advocate for yourself,” Laine says. “If you find something you love, you can’t wait for it to happen on its own — you have to decide to go for it and find a way to make it happen.”
By Ashley Balzer
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Jul 30, 2025 Related Terms
Internships Goddard Space Flight Center Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope People of Goddard People of NASA View the full article
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By NASA
Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio Mosaics More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions Mars Home 2 min read
Curiosity Blog, Sols 4614-4615: Driving Along the Boxwork
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image, looking out in the direction from where it came, with the rover’s tracks visible through the dust and sand covering the ground. Curiosity acquired this image using its Left Navigation Camera on July 28, 2025 — Sol 4612, or Martian day 4,612 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 00:27:23 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Written by Conor Hayes, Graduate Student at York University
Earth planning date: Monday, July 28, 2025
Today was a pretty straightforward day of planning. Our drive over the weekend completed successfully, and we quickly confirmed that we are parked in a stable position. Thus, we were able to unstow the rover’s arm to poke around in our new workspace, which features a large sand-filled fracture. Aside from all of the good geology work to be done, the view from our current location is quite spectacular.
We’re still in the time of year where the atmosphere at Gale is reasonably dust-free (at least, compared to later in the year), allowing us to look all the way out to and beyond the Gale crater rim. The upper slopes of Mount Sharp have also re-emerged to our east after spending months hidden behind the walls of Gediz Vallis. There’s a bit more sand and dust in this location than we’ve seen recently, so we can also see the trail left behind by the rover’s wheels as we drove to this location (see the image above).
We’re still deep in our examination of the boxwork structures that we’re now driving through, so most of Curiosity’s attention in this plan is focused much closer to the rover than any of the scenic vista surrounding us. APXS, DRT, and MAHLI will all take a look at “Cañón de Palca,” some bedrock close to the large fracture in this workspace. Mastcam and ChemCam RMI will image some boxwork ridges at “Caine,” and will also collaborate on imaging of the weekend’s post-drive AEGIS target and a LIBS bedrock target “Doña Ines.” Mastcam’s solo activities include taking a look at some layering at “Paniri butte” and at MAHLI to examine a speck of dust that may have fallen on the lens.
We’ll be driving away from this location along one of the boxwork ridges, which, at about 5 meters (about 16 feet) wide, is more than large enough to fit our car-sized rover. Post-drive activities are largely focused on environmental monitoring, including Navcam line-of-sight and dust-devil surveys to look at dust, and several Navcam cloud movies. As usual, ChemCam will also join the post-drive fun with an AEGIS observation. More environmental monitoring by REMS, RAD, and DAN fill out the remainder of this plan.
Learn more about Curiosity’s science instruments
For more Curiosity blog posts, visit MSL Mission Updates
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Last Updated Jul 29, 2025 Related Terms
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Curiosity Blog, Sols 4611-4613: Scenic Overlook
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image, sitting on top of the distinctive ridge-and-hollow terrain of the boxwork-forming unit for a panoramic view, on July 24, 2025. Curiosity used its Right Navigation Camera on Sol 4609, or Martian day 4,609 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission, at 21:29:43 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Written by Lucy Lim, Planetary Scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Earth planning date: Friday, July 25, 2025
A 23-meter drive (about 75 feet) brought Curiosity to today’s planned “look-about” spot. The highlight of the plan will be the 360-degree Mastcam panorama that will document the ridge-and-hollow topography of the boxwork-forming unit we’ve been exploring, in addition to overlying stratigraphy in some of the nearby buttes. The right-angle ridge pattern is quite prominent in the HiRISE orbital imaging, which enabled us to plan for this stop. It has been 70 sols since the last panorama and the rover has driven quite some distance in that time!
Additional detailed imaging was planned with the ChemCam remote imager (RMI) and Mastcam high-resolution M100: mosaics will cover the exposed strata underneath the ridge we’re planning to drive on (“Arequipa Airport”), two linear fractures, one parallel to the large ridge and one cross-cutting it (“Laguna de Salinas” and “Laguna Santa Rosa”), some troughs around a nearby light-toned float block (“Arubai”), and the Uyuni butte in the middle distance.
The bedrock texture here was a noticeable change from the previous workspace, with a knobbly oriented texture interspersed occasionally with platier exposures. Geochemical measurements were planned with the ChemCam LIBS to complement the auto-targeted post-drive AEGIS measurement: “La Coca” on a block that appeared to show unusual colors, and “El Algodón” on a knobbly textured chunk of bedrock. APXS geochemistry was planned with dust removal on the “Yura Tuff” knobbly target and without dust removal on the “Tipnis” target. MAHLI will also provide close-up imaging on the two APXS targets.
For the modern Martian environment, it’s still the cloudy season at Gale so we are planning several cloud-related activities. The Mastcam sky survey will measure abundances of atmospheric dust and water ice, whereas a special cloud altitude observation will include video of clouds and their shadows so that the altitudes and velocities of the clouds and related winds can be calculated. A separate short movie will search for dust lifting (dust devil) activity. Finally, the usual passive REMS and DAN observations will monitor the temperature, humidity, and neutron environment at Curiosity’s current location.
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Curiosity Blog, Sols 4609–4610: Recharged and Ready To Roll Onwards
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image showing the boxwork hollow where it is investigating, and the boxwork ridge on the far side of the hollow, using its Left Navigation Camera. Curiosity captured the image on July 20, 2025 — Sol 4605, or Martian day 4,605 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 18:51:55 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Written by Catherine O’Connell-Cooper, Planetary Geologist at University of New Brunswick
Earth planning date: Wednesday, July 23, 2025
For today’s planning, we were in the same workspace as the Monday plan — on purpose! We don’t often have a plan without a drive but in order to allow the battery to recover from some power-hungry SAM atmospheric measurements over the weekend and on Monday, we needed to stay put and skip our usual drive. As a result, we gained a bonus planning cycle at this interesting workspace.
We are in one of the “hollows” between the resistant ridges of the “boxwork” terrain, as you can see in the image for this blog. This made for a quieter Operations day for me as the APXS planner. As Deborah noted in Monday’s blog, we have already gotten three APXS and MAHLI measurements in this workspace, so we didn’t acquire more in this plan.
This morning, we focused on documenting some small light-toned, rounded, white pebbles in the workspace (you can see them in the accompanying Navcam image), which look very different from the underlying bedrock. We used our one ChemCam LIBS analysis for the plan on “Yana Qaqa.” Mastcam will image this pebble, another at “Ojos del Salado,” and a really cool-looking target with a dendritic-looking texture at “Punta de Lobos.”
Further afield, Mastcam will image the adjacent boxwork ridge and hollow in our drive direction, and a series of troughs with raised edges to the right of our current workspace. ChemCam will image a long-distance RMI mosaic of “Cueva de los Vencejos y Murciélagos,” which was imaged by Mastcam on Monday, and also acquire some further images of the “Mishe Mokwa” hill.
We had a bumper couple of sols of atmospheric measurements over the weekend and Monday. Now we revert back to our more normal environmental and atmospheric monitoring. These do not get as much attention sometimes as the amazing images we take of the fascinating rocks we see, but have been taking place consistently and continuously since Curiosity’s landing almost 13 years ago now. This plan includes a series of Navcam movies (suprahorizon, dust devil) and a line-of-sight observation of dust, standard REMS and DAN observations, and two Mastcam tau measurements, looking at dust in the atmosphere.
Our 24-meter drive (almost 79 feet) will take us out of this hollow and back up on top of a ridge. From here, we hope to be able to spy the best driving path through the boxwork. The ridges are up to 5 meters in diameter (about 16 feet), so we are cautiously hopeful that we can just trundle along one of the ridges as we investigate this fascinating terrain.
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Curiosity Blog, Sols 4607-4608: Deep Dip
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image, looking toward the upper slopes of Mount Sharp, using its Left Navigation Camera (Left Navcam) on July 20, 2025. Curiosity captured the image on Sol 4605, or Martian day 4,605 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission, at 18:58:26 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Written by Deborah Padgett, MSL OPGS Task Lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Earth planning date: Monday, July 21, 2025
Curiosity continues our exploration of the fractured boxwork terrain on the slopes of Mount Sharp. After a successful 5-meter drive (about 16 feet), our rover is resting in a hollow on its way to a boxwork ridge viewpoint. Over the weekend, Curiosity began an atmospheric observation with the SAM instrument, which will continue into today’s plan. Because the SAM instrument is complex and powerful, it uses a great deal of energy when it operates, causing what we call a “deep dip” in the battery charge level. This means that we have to wait a bit after the SAM observations complete for the battery to recharge enough for Curiosity to observe its surroundings with other science instruments, or move its arm or wheels. For this reason, the plan today does not include a drive, and contact science at this location will be done on the second sol of the plan.
On Sol 4607, Curiosity will begin the day with SAM atmospheric composition activity, which will run for several hours. After it finishes, we will use the rover’s navigation camera to perform a cloud altitude observation, looking for cloud shadows on the upper reaches of Mount Sharp, and clouds drifting by overhead at the zenith. Overnight, Curiosity’s battery will recharge, allowing us to perform a targeted science block on the morning of Sol 4608. This starts with Navcam observations of dust opacity across the floor of Gale Crater, then a measurement of dust in the air toward the Sun with Mastcam. Curiosity then turns Mastcam toward the ridge ahead to obtain a 15×1 mosaic on target “Cueva De Los Vencejos Y Murcielagos (Cave of Swifts and Bats).” Afterwards, Mastcam will look back along Curiosity’s tracks, hoping to see freshly broken rocks and determine the texture of disturbed ground. Next, ChemCam’s laser spectrograph will zap a nodular rock pillar named for the famous high-altitude “Lake Titicaca” bordering Bolivia and Peru. A second ChemCam observation with the RMI telescopic camera will study stratigraphy on the Mishe Mokwa butte with a 5×2 image mosaic. Mastcam will finish off this science block by looking at the pits left behind by the ChemCam laser on target “Lake Titicaca.”
In the afternoon, Curiosity’s arm will reach out to brush the dust from the bedrock target “La Tranquita,” then observe it with the MAHLI microscopic imager and APXS. MAHLI and APXS will also investigate plate-like rock formations at target “Aqua Dulce.” A third target with more complex rock structures dubbed “Paposo,” after a natural monument along the Pacific Coast of northern Chile, will be imaged only by MAHLI. The next morning will include another targeted science block. Curiosity will then drive away toward the next viewpoint in the boxwork terrain of Mars.
For more Curiosity blog posts, visit MSL Mission Updates
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