A Mars Odyssey

“The clay minerals are especially promising in the search for ancient life on Mars,” said University of Arizona (UA) Professor Alfred S. McEwen, principal investigator for the high resolution camera. (from the www.planetary.org website)

HiRISE, also referred to as the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, just released 143 color images in order for researchers to study future landing sites for the NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory. Located on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the HiRISE is helping the Laboratory’s mission deploy a long-distance rover carry a deck of the most sophisticated science instruments to Mars in 2010.

Located on the HiRISE Website, it is possible to see the colored images that are available through the Planetary Data System, NASA’s space mission data archive. Also available is a colored movie, allowing the public to see the candidate to see the possible landing sites. One location is the Nili Fossae, located 21 degrees north latitude, and 74 degrees east latitude. The animation feature of the movie shows the enhanced color ranges that NASA has corresponding to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s imaging spectrometer determines to be hydrated clay minerals and unaltered volcanic rocks.

Thirty proposed landing sites are already available for the 2009 mission, with the scientists who are planning the Mars Science Laboratory being responsible for choosing the one Martian site to be used in the future. This choice depends a lot on to what extent the Martian environment is capable of supporting life. Ashwin Vasavada, Mars Science Laboratory deputy project scientist, said, “We’ve intentionally waited for the reconnaissance from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to help us zero in on those places.”

The amount of data returned has passed a mission-success milestone, with the first image on December 4, 2006, at Holden Crater as part of a major campaign to examine more than two dozen candidate landing sites for the NASA Mars Science Laboratory—scheduled for launch in 2009. Holden was chosen because it contains deep gullies that were believed to be carved by running water, an excellent example of likely lake beds and alluvial fans on its floor. With deposits about 3.7 billion years old, they are dating the area to a wetter period of history on Mars. After the lake beds were deposited, it looks as if a massive flood affected the Holden Crater area from the southwest, depositing layers of dark boulders and gravel into the gully that are now exposed near the top of the cliff, according to the NASA scientists in charge of the mission.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 11th, 2007 at 5:13 pm and is filed under Mission Objectives, Space Agency News, The Gear to Get There. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.