THEMIS Image of the Day, October 5, 2016. The linear depressions in this VIS image are some of the numerous graben that make up Claritas Fossae. Graben form when two faults cause a block of material to be dropped to a lower elevation.
More THEMIS Images of the Day by geological topic.
October 5, 2016: Opportunity Exits Marathon Valley then Rocks Spirit Mound: It was another September to remember for the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) mission as Opportunity cruised through the Lewis and Clark Gap and out of Marathon Valley, then hiked downslope, leading the first overland expedition of the Red Planet to Spirit Mound, a new site deep in Endeavour Crater’s rim.
“We have completed the ninth mission extension and are now starting the tenth,” said John Callas, MER project manager, of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), home to all of NASA’s Mars rovers. “We are in a new phase of the mission.”
The MER team’s extended mission plan was written, presented, reviewed, and approved earlier this year. In July, MER was granted another two-year mission extension, which, in essence, allocates the funds to keep Opportunity roving through 2017 and 2018.
After more than a year of roving around Marathon Valley, an area roughly the size of three football fields, however, the views had gotten old. Having completed research on the remnants of ancient clay minerals the mission came here to ground-truth, and characterizing zones in the valley where water trickled or flowed millions to billions of years ago, neither Opportunity nor her Earth-based colleagues had any good reason to hang around.
So, on September 4th, months ahead of schedule, the veteran robot field geologist left Marathon Valley, heading east and downhill toward the interior of Endeavour Crater.
“Once we shot through that gap and started heading down the hill and were just motoring along, it was a good feeling,” said Steve Squyres, MER principal investigator, of Cornell University. “It’s actually really fun to be on the road again.” [More at link]
Today [October 3], MAVEN has completed one Mars year of science observations. One Mars year is just under two Earth years. MAVEN launched on Nov. 18, 2013, and went into orbit around Mars on Sept. 21, 2014. During its time at Mars, MAVEN has answered many questions about the Red Planet.
The spacecraft has made the following discoveries and science results:
• Most complete determination of the rate of loss of gas from the atmosphere to space and of how it is controlled by the sun, both during quiet times and during solar-storm events…
(…)
“Taken together, the MAVEN results tell us that loss of gas from the atmosphere to space has been the major force behind the climate having changed from a warm, wet environment to the cold, dry one that we see today,” said Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator, from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder.
NASA recently declared that MAVEN had achieved mission success during its primary mission. Mission success means that the spacecraft operated as intended, made the expected science measurements, and achieved its proposed science objectives.
MAVEN has been approved for an additional two-year extended mission that will run through the end of September 2018. [More at link]
[On October 4, ExoMars 2016 is 11 days from the separation of the Schiaparelli lander from the Trace Gas Orbiter, and 14 days from Schiaparelli's landing on Meridiani Planum. This ESA post describes the trials and tribulations of Mars landings since the early 1960s, and it details the plans for getting Schiaparelli down safely. — Ed.]
Mars has been a source of wonder for many centuries, inspiring both scientific speculation and literary imagination. Since the dawn of the Space Age, leading spacefaring nations have attempted to utilise modern technology to unveil the mysteries of Mars by surveying the planet from above and delivering robotic explorers onto its dusty terrain.
More than 40 missions have been despatched to the Red Planet since the early 1960s. Following the usual sequence of increasingly complex investigations, the early attempts to characterise Mars involved relatively straightforward, but short-lived, flybys. These were soon followed by orbiters, which carried ever more sophisticated instruments to map the entire planet and characterise its diverse landscapes… (…)
Schiaparelli is aiming for Meridiani Planum, a relatively smooth, flat region close to the Martian equator and fairly near the current location of NASA’s Opportunity rover. Three sites near the equator are currently being investigated for the ExoMars 2020 mission, which will deliver ESA’s first planetary rover. [Much more at link]
NASA tested new “eyes” for its next Mars rover mission on a rocket built by Masten Space Systems in Mojave, California, thanks in part to NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program, or FOP.
The agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is leading development of the Mars 2020 rover and its Lander Vision System, or LVS. (…)
LVS, a camera-based navigation system, photographs the terrain beneath a descending spacecraft and matches it with onboard maps allowing the craft to detect its location relative to landing hazards, such as boulders and outcroppings.
The system can then direct the craft toward a safe landing at its primary target site or divert touchdown toward better terrain if there are hazards in the approaching target area. Image matching is aided by an inertial measurement unit that monitors orientation. [More at link]
THEMIS Image of the Day, October 4, 2016. This VIS image of the South Polar cap shows several different surface textures. It appears that the circular depressions (which look like swiss cheese) alter with time, appearing to lose the circular shape as the intervening walls of ice are removed.
More THEMIS Images of the Day by geological topic.
Sol 1480-81, October 3, 2016, update by USGS scientist Ken Herkenhoff: MSL drove 12.5 meters on Sol 1478, to an area with lots of nodules in the bedrock. The tactical planning team decided to exercise the “touch and go” option, so the arm will be deployed for contact science before driving away on Sol 1480. The plan is packed with a variety of activities, starting with a short APXS integration and MAHLI imaging of a nodule-rich target named “Oodi.” The arm will then be moved out of the way for ChemCam and Right Mastcam observations of Oodi and nearby bedrock targets “Calenga” and “Caconda.” [More at link]
Researcher Don Hood from Louisiana State University and colleagues at collaborating universities studied an unusual region on Mars — an area with high elevation called Thaumasia Planum.
They analyzed the geography and mineralogy of this area they termed Greater Thaumasia, which is about the size of North America. They also studied the chemistry of this area based on Gamma Ray Spectrometer data collected by the Mars Odyssey Orbiter, which was launched in 2001.
What they found was the mountain ridge that outlines Greater Thaumasia was most likely created by a chain of volcanoes. The results were published recently in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Planets.
“The chemical changes we see moving northwestward through the region is consistent with the mantle evolving on Mars. Our research supports that this whole area was built as a volcanic construct,” said Don Hood, LSU Department of Geology and Geophysics doctoral candidate and lead author of the paper.
The chemical composition changes throughout the region. Silica and H20 increase and potassium decreases from southeast to northwest.
“The chemical composition shifting is the key progression that tells us that this environment was most likely shaped by a series of volcanic events that continually erupted from a changing mantle composition,” Hood said. [More at links]
Dark dunes over light-toned mega-ripples. Beautiful Mars series.
After collecting drilled rock powder in arguably the most scenic landscape yet visited by a Mars rover, NASA’s Curiosity mobile laboratory is driving toward uphill destinations as part of its two-year mission extension that commenced Oct. 1.
The destinations include a ridge capped with material rich in the iron-oxide mineral hematite, about a mile-and-a-half (two-and-a-half kilometers) ahead, and an exposure of clay-rich bedrock beyond that.
These are key exploration sites on lower Mount Sharp, which is a layered, Mount-Rainier-size mound where Curiosity is investigating evidence of ancient, water-rich environments that contrast with the harsh, dry conditions on the surface of Mars today.
“We continue to reach higher and younger layers on Mount Sharp,” said Curiosity Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. “Even after four years of exploring near and on the mountain, it still has the potential to completely surprise us.” [More at link]
