“I think we have collectively oversimplified Mars,” Carter says. The new map shows that there are hundreds of thousands of aqueous mineral deposits on Mars, at least – particularly in some of the oldest parts of the planet’s surface. The new work, led by planetary scientist John Carter (um, this is spooky) of the University of Paris-Saclay and Aix Marseille University in France, has identified rather significantly more.
(ESA/Mars Express (OMEGA) and NASA/Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (CRISM))īefore the survey started, there were around a thousand known aqueous mineral deposits on Mars. The new global Mars map of aqueous minerals. However, a broader map of where they can be found gives us a more comprehensive picture of the water history of Mars and will help plan future exploration of the now dry and dusty world.Īnd, contrary to expectations, the map shows that wherever we go on Mars, we’re bound to find something interesting.
We know there are clays on Mars we’ve even seen some up close, or as close as we can, via the Curiosity rover.
The deposits are aqueous minerals – those that have been altered by the presence of water, like clays. Using data collected over the past decade by ESA’s Mars Express and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, both currently in orbit around the red planet, scientists have created the most comprehensive map yet of specific Martian mineral deposits. Sunlight illuminates the images from the left/lower left.A new map, years in the making, reveals where we can find ancient traces of water on Mars. The large "face" picture covers an area about 3.6 kilometers (2.2 miles) on a side. If present on Mars, objects the size of typical passenger jet airplanes would be distinguishable in an image of this scale. The resulting image has a resolution of about 2 meters (6.6 feet) per pixel. On that date at 20:54 UTC (8:54 p.m., Greenwich time zone), the MGS was rolled 24.8° to the left so that it was looking at the "face" 165 km to the side from a distance of about 450 km. Given the popularity of this landform, a new high-resolution view was targeted by pointing the spacecraft off-nadir on April 8, 2001. The feature was subsequently popularized as a potential "alien artifact" in books, tabloids, radio talk shows, television, and even a major motion picture. Viking orbiter images acquired in 1976 showed that one of thousands of buttes, mesas, ridges, and knobs in the transition zone between the cratered uplands of western Arabia Terra and the low, northern plains of Mars looked somewhat like a human face. On April 8, 2001, the first opportunity since April 1998 arose to turn the spacecraft and point the MOC at the popular "Face on Mars" feature. The Extended Mission began February 1, 2001.
Following the lander search activities, a plan to conduct similar off-nadir observations during the MGS Extended Mission was put into place. When the Mars Polar Lander was lost in December 1999, this capability was again employed to search for the missing lander. In April 1998, nearly a year before MGS reached its Primary Mission mapping orbit, several tests of the spacecraft's ability to be pointed at specific features was conducted with great success (e.g., Mars Pathfinder landing site, Viking 1 site, and Cydonia landforms). In this orientation, opportunities to hit a specific small feature of interest were in some cases rare, and in other cases non-existent. Throughout the Primary Mission (March 1999 - January 2001), nearly all MGS operations were conducted with the spacecraft pointing "nadir"-that is, straight down. A chance to point the spacecraft comes about ten times a week. A key aspect of the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Extended Mission is the opportunity to turn the spacecraft and point the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) at specific features of interest.
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