HiRISE has now added Romanian (Română) to our group of outreach languages, with a new Tumblr, and dedicated Twitter feed, @HiRISERomania These are the first and only resources from an active NASA mission in the Romanian language, and three of our volunteers offer up their take why they volunteered.

Gabriela Tache: I am a high school geography teacher who is passionate about the study of different languages. This enthusiasm for languages is demonstrated by the post graduate diploma in English that I have completed, and my dedication to becoming fluent in French. I am currently studying German to help broaden my language skills.

I was intrigued by The BeautifulMars Project as it allowed the wonderful and captivating images of Mars, taken by HiRISE, to become accessible to everyone interested in space exploration. I became involved because I wanted to contribute to the dissemination of the latest Mars discoveries among young people in my country. The BeautifulMars Project represents an unprecedented opportunity for all of them to access high-quality science information in Romanian.

Also, through my participation in this project I hope to inspire my students to engage in volunteering  programs and activities to match their knowledge, skills, and interests.



Cristina Andra Vrinceanu: I am studying remote sensing and I have a great passion for astronomy. I am mainly focused on the study of our mother Earth but I have never ceased on being interested on everything that is beyond our pale blue dot. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is one fantastic mission, and, from a scientist’s point of view, the imagery captured with the HiRISE camera can be catalogued as gems. The initiative of making all this accessible to a wider public is great and the fact that I have the opportunity to bring all these fantastic results and knowledge to my fellow Romanians in a time when my country is in a very great need of more oriented to science people, makes it even more valuable. I am always thinking that, along with the other volunteers from Romania, we managed to take another small step in the process of popularizing science here and this is why I am so proud to be part of this project.



Valentin Cojocaru: The main reason I have started helping out with translating Beautiful Mars from English to Romanian is to raise awareness and to reach out to Romanian people, to whom in general I would consider are being passionate about space. My first encounter with BeautifulMars was exactly on the Tumblr page where I was amazed by the HiRISE pictures posted there from Mars. I then started to screenshot every one and add them to my Mars collection, a personal hobby started a few years ago by ideas such as Elon Musk's where Mars could be colonized by the human race. This is also my first endeavor as a volunteer and I am really happy about it and grateful for the activity of this community where within today's multilingual culture, space can be found for each one of us, Romanian or other nationality, to be delighted and dream about conquering a bit of our wonderful Universe.


We also want to extend our thanks to volunteers Thea Nicolescu and Bianca Hambasan, for their help and participation.



The purpose of the BeautifulMars Project is to reach those people, especially children, who want to know about Mars but don’t have strong skills in English. Our Project also serves as an excellent tool for language promotion and preservation. Since we call HiRISE “the people’s camera,” our project is a perfect way to bring planetary science to people all over the world in their own language. More importantly, we always seek to improve on what we have, so if you see something that can be worded better, let us know! Communicating with people is what the Project is all about.

If you’re interested in volunteering for HiRISE Romania, please contact the BeautifulMars Project.



About HiRISE
The HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is the most powerful one of its kind ever sent to another planet. Its high resolution allows us to see Mars like never before, and helps other missions choose a safe spot to land for future exploration.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. The HiRISE camera was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. and is operated by the University of Arizona.