The New Face of Mars
- Paper number
IAC-05-H.L.1.01
- Author
Dr. James B. Garvin, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), United States
- Coauthor
Prof. Bernard Foing, European Space Agency (ESA)/ESTEC, The Netherlands
- Year
2005
- Abstract
Times are busy at our neighbour planet Mars: presently three satellites observe Mars from orbital positions, ESA's Mars Express, and NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey, while the twin Mars Exploration Rovers �Spirit� and �Opportunity� investigate the martian surface in closeup detail. Mars Express is a comprehensive remote sensing mission that features a suite of instruments to study the global geological evolution, atmospheric and water history of Mars. The spectacular images of the high resolution stereo camera have shown evidence of maqny novel features, amongst those recent volcanic activity, peri-glacial activity, and a possible frozen sea at tropical latitude. Other instruments measure the signature of water in the atmosphere, polar ices, and the radar will search for subsurface water. A Fourier spectrometer detected the presence of methane in the Mars atmosphere that is possibly of biogenic or hydrothermal origin. After more than 500 days of in situ geo-scientific exploration, the Mars Exploration Rovers have documented the human-scale geology of another world, at two sites where different aspects of the ancient martian water cycle has been revealed. Orbital remote sensing has helped steer surface-based reconnaissance to scientifically interesting locations. With the results of these twin rovers, geologists now believe there is compelling evidence of persistent acid groundwaters, in some cases associated with surface water perhaps as lakes or shallow seas, and in others as chemical weathering agents in much lower abundances. The discovery of mineral assemblages on Mars that resemble evaporite sequences suggests that aqueous sedimentary sequences on Mars could have preserved aspects of biology if any ever existed. Thus the combination of orbital remote sensing with rover-based ground truth has provided a wealth of new information on Mars and raised new questions about the habitability of Mars in space and time.
- Abstract document