MARSIS MARSIS MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding) is a low frequency, pulse-limited radar sounder and altimeter developed by the University of Rome La Sapienza and Alenia Spazio (today Thales Alenia Space Italy). The Italian MARSIS instrument is operational on the European Space Agency, "Mars Express" orbiter mission. The MARSIS Principal Investigator is Giovanni Picardi from the University of Rome "La Sapienza", Italy. It features ground-penetrating radar capabilities, which uses synthetic aperture techniques and a secondary receiving antenna to isolate subsurface reflections. MARSIS identified buried basins on Mars. MARSIS was funded by ASI (Italy) and NASA (USA). On
Peggy Rae Sapienza the University of Maryland, her alma mater, for a student majoring in economics "to help facilitate the education of a hardworking student and encourage him or her toward graduation" (Sapienza had graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in economics). On June 5, 2015, Chicon 7 created the Peggy Rae Sapienza Endowment to benefit the special collections library at Northern Illinois University, using the last of Chicon 7’s surplus funds. Chicon 7 Chair Dave McCarty announced the initial endowment of $25,000 during the Nebula Awards Weekend reception at The Palmer House Hilton in Chicago. The endowment is intended to advance