THEMIS Image of the Day, October 19, 2016. Today’s false color image shows part of the plains of Tyrrhena Terra, with its diverse geological units highlighted by the colors. The THEMIS VIS camera contains 5 filters. The data from different filters can be combined in multiple ways to create a false color image. These false color images may reveal subtle variations of the surface not easily identified in a single band image.
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Sol 1494, October 18, 2016, update by USGS scientist Ken Herkenhoff: When we looked at the latest data from MSL this morning, we noticed that the MAHLI and ChemCam RMI images of the Quela dump pile were unexpectedly offset from the center of the pile. After looking at more of the recent images, it became clear that the dump pile had been moved by winds! So we put together plans to repeat the ChemCam passive observation and… [More at link]
Updates from ESA’s space operations centre as the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter approaches and enters orbit around the Red Planet, and the Schiaparelli module lands on its surface.
Red Planet Report ExoMars mission coverage here. [More at links]
Geomorphologists who study Earth’s surface features and the processes that formed them have long been interested in how floods, in particular catastrophic outbursts that occur when a glacial lake ice dam bursts, for example, can change a planet’s surface, not only on Earth but on Mars.
Now geoscience researchers Isaac Larsen at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Michael Lamb at the California Institute of Technology have proposed and tested a new model of canyon-forming floods which suggests that deep canyons can be formed in bedrock by significantly less water than previously thought. They point out that “reconstructing the magnitude of the canyon-forming floods is essential for understanding how floods modify planetary surfaces, the hydrology of early Mars, and abrupt climate change.”
Larsen and Lamb apply their new model to the “channeled scablands” in eastern Washington State, an area that, like some on Mars, has very deep canyons cut into fractured basalt bedrock. The researchers say their results suggest “there may be a rich imprint of both the history and discharge of flooding in the morphology of canyons” such as terraces, valley shapes and slope profiles on Earth and on Mars “that warrant further investigation.” Details appear in the current issue of Nature. (…)
In areas underlain by fractured bedrock, Larsen says, “our general concept is that the channel floor was being cut and lowered as the floods were happening, and you need to account for that when reconstructing the scenario of flood magnitude. This applies to the scablands, to Mars and other areas where there have been catastrophic outburst floods.” [More at links]
THEMIS Image of the Day, October 18, 2016. Today’s false color image shows part of Lobo Vallis, which is part of the larger Kasei Valles, a giant flood channel. The dark blue material is most likely basaltic sand. The THEMIS VIS camera contains 5 filters. The data from different filters can be combined in multiple ways to create a false color image. These false color images may reveal subtle variations of the surface not easily identified in a single band image.
More THEMIS Images of the Day by geological topic.
New global images of Mars from the MAVEN mission show the ultraviolet glow from the Martian atmosphere in unprecedented detail, revealing dynamic, previously invisible behavior. They include the first images of “nightglow” that can be used to show how winds circulate at high altitudes. Additionally, dayside ultraviolet imagery from the spacecraft shows how ozone amounts change over the seasons and how afternoon clouds form over giant Martian volcanoes. The images were taken by the MAVEN Imaging UltraViolet Spectrograph (IUVS).
“MAVEN obtained hundreds of such images in recent months, giving some of the best high-resolution ultraviolet coverage of Mars ever obtained,” said Nick Schneider of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder. Schneider is presenting these results Oct. 19 at the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences meeting in Pasadena, California. [More at link]
The most critical moment so far in the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter’s journey will be Wednesday’s Mars Orbit Insertion burn – the long (ca. 134 mins) engine firing that will slow the spacecraft down sufficiently to be captured into Mars orbit. What actually happens during this critical burn, though? Here we thought we’d give you a more detailed rundown of that all-important moment.
The most critical moment so far in the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter’s journey will be Wednesday’s Mars Orbit Insertion burn – the long (ca. 134 mins) engine firing that will slow the spacecraft down sufficiently to be captured into Mars orbit. What actually happens during this critical burn, though? Here we thought we’d give you a more detailed rundown of that all-important moment. [More at link]
Sol 1491-92, October 17, 2016, update by USGS scientist Ryan Anderson: With the weekend plan, we officially started our drill campaign on the target “Sebina,” so we will be staying in this location through the week. On Sol 1491 we dumped out the post-sieve sample from our previous drill hole at “Quela”, and did some brushing on Sebina, followed by APXS and MAHLI imaging.
On Sol 1492, the rover did a lot of remote sensing, starting off with an early morning suite of atmospheric observations using Navcam and Mastcam. Mastcam also had a 360 degree mosaic from our current location. In the afternoon on Sol 1492, Mastcam had a multispectral… [More at link]
THEMIS Image of the Day, October 17, 2016. Today’s false color image shows part of Gale Crater. The dark blue is basaltic sand. Gale Crater is the “home” of the Curiosity Rover. The THEMIS VIS camera contains 5 filters. The data from different filters can be combined in multiple ways to create a false color image. These false color images may reveal subtle variations of the surface not easily identified in a single band image.
More THEMIS Images of the Day by geological topic.
