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Odyssey Sends Back Images of Mars
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It was kinda like stuffing the wrong card in a computer, when you're stickin' those artificial stimulants in your arm. -- Dion, noted computer scientist
Mars Exploration (Score:4, Informative)
The remote sensing technologies on the MGS spacecraft have yielded enough new data about the geology of Mars that planetary scientists will still be studying it for decades to come. Yet, the planetary geologists can hardly wait for the instruments on the 2001 Mars Odyssey to be turned on so they can get more.
ASU Korrick Professor of Geology Philip Christensen, the principal investigator for Mars Global Surveyor's Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) and also for 2001 Mars Odyssey's Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) is still getting data from TES. However, thanks to a significant expansion of his team's facilities, he and his colleagues are prepared to receive and analyze an additional stream of data from an even more powerful instrumental array. On Feb. 22, Christensen and fellow scientists will dedicate a newly remodeled and greatly expanded set of facilities in the Moeur Building. NASA administrators will be present, as will a group of students from Nogales, Ariz., who will be among the first of thousands of middle and high school students to participate in Mars imaging and remote sensing alongside the scientists.
Measuring the infrared signatures of minerals on Mars' surface, TES produced the first global mineral map of Mars and provided the mineralogical roadmap for geologists and geochemists following the trail to water's past on Mars.
"From TES we learned what minerals were present, where former hydrothermal systems might have been located, the mineral compositions of the dust, ice and rocks on Mars and we've got a lot of interesting ideas of where might be the most interesting and unique places on the Martian surface," Christensen says. With THEMIS, Christensen now hopes to start focusing on these locations. What sets THEMIS apart from its predecessor is high spatial resolution. Compared to TES, the images THEMIS sends back to earth are three times clearer.
"It's like if you sent a survey out to map the West and you discover the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevadas and the great deserts," Christensen says. "You do an inventory of what's out there, and then you start focusing on places like Yellowstone, places that are unique and different from every place else."
THEMIS, a two-camera thermal emission imaging system, is equipped to study the Martian surface on two fronts. In addition to collecting information about Martian surface minerals from the infrared heat they emit, THEMIS also collects data from reflected sunlight. THEMIS collects infrared information using 10 spectral bands and visible light using five bands.
Using its improved infrared capabilities, THEMIS will continue TES's mission to determine the mineralogy of the Martian surface, map the entire planet and identify where ancient, wet environments - and possibly life - may have once existed on Mars. THEMIS will also search for temperature anomalies associated with active subsurface hydrothermal systems, such as heat coming from active volcanic areas.
Using its visible light capabilities, THEMIS will help fill in informational gaps between large-scale geological images from the Viking orbiters in the 1970s and the very high-resolution images from TES. Essentially, THEMIS will provide a more comprehensive map of the particular features of Mars' geology and geography.
This information is key to NASA's upcoming 2003 Mars Exploration Rovers mission, which plans to send two rovers equipped with remote sensing equipment to the surface of Mars. Christensen and his team at ASU are preparing smaller versions of his instrument to be installed on the rovers.
In order to know where the rovers should land, researchers like Christensen want to know not only where the most interesting mineral deposits are located, but also in which of these sites the rovers will best be able to maneuver.
More pics / better pics (Score:5, Informative)
Correct NYT link (Score:5, Informative)
Large volumes of water on mars (Score:4, Informative)
Some links:
CNN article [cnn.com]
BBC article [bbc.co.uk]
Yet another article [planetark.org]
Hopefully they are correctly intrepreting the data.
The Name of the Spacecraft... (Score:1)
The probe was named "2001 Mars Odyssey" in respect to Arthur C. Clarke and his works, keeping in mind that the name "Odyssey" comes from the story of Odysseus, who did that "Flying Dutchman" thing for many years after pissing Poseidon off.
Odyssey was also the name of the doomed Command/Service Module of Apollo 13.
NASA sometimes can't figure out bad luck markers when they see it--
1. Don't push every superstitious button that Fate offers you (Apollo 13, lifted off on 4/11/70 at military 13:13 hours, entered lunar gravity on the third day of their flight, 4/13)
2. Don't do anything daring or new in January. (Apollo 1, died in pad fire 1/27/67)
3. Be sure to review item 2. (Challenger disaster, with a civilian (new), on a cold (daring) January day, 1/28/86)
4. Make sure the spacecraft hatches stay where they're expected (Gus Grissom's near-drowning after Liberty Bell 7 blows hatch after splashdown, 1961)
5. Make sure the spacecraft hatches can open when the crew really needs to go (Apollo 1 fire, where Gus G. dies from suffocation from a very secure hatch).
6. Never name any project after anything that rhymes with "trouble." (Hubble multi-million optics goof, 1990)