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Chasma Boreale
Chasma Boreale is a large canyon in Mars's north polar ice cap in the Mare Boreum quadrangle of Mars at 83° north latitude and 47.1° west longitude. It is about long and was named after a classical albedo feature name. The canyon's sides reveal layered features within the ice cap that result from seasonal melting and deposition of ice, together with dust deposits from Martian dust storms. Information about the past climate of Mars may eventually be revealed in these layers, just as tree ring patterns and ice core data do on Earth. Both polar caps also display grooved features, probably caused by wind flow patterns. The grooves are also influenced by the amount of dust. The more dust, the darker the surface. The darker the surface, the more melting as dark surfaces absorb more energy. Gallery Chasma Boreale Streamined Feature.JPG, Chasma Boreale streamined feature, as seen by HiRISE. Chasma Boreale.jpg, Chasma Boreale, as seen by HiRISE. Chasma Boreale, Mars.jpg, Computer-ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chasma Boreale Channels
In planetary nomenclature, a chasma (''plural'': chasmata ) is a deep, elongated, steep-sided depression. As of 2020, the IAU has named 122 such features in the Solar System, on Venus (63), Mars (25), Saturn's satellites Mimas (6), Tethys (2), Dione (8) and Rhea (5), Uranus's satellites Ariel (7), Titania (2) and Oberon (1) and Pluto's satellite Charon (3). An example is Eos Chasma on Mars. Mars Below are images of some of the major chasmata of Mars. The map shows their relative locations. Interior layered deposits and sulfate Parts of the floor of Candor Chasma contains layered deposits that have been termed interior layered deposits (ILD's). These layers may have formed when the whole area was a giant lake. Some places on Mars contain hydrated sulfate deposits. Sulfate formation involves the presence of water. The European Space Agency's Mars Express found evidence of perhaps epsomite and kieserite. Scientists want to visit these areas with robotic rovers. Layers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HiRISE
High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment is a camera on board the ''Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter'' which has been orbiting and studying Mars since 2006. The 65 kg (143 lb), US$40 million instrument was built under the direction of the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. It consists of a 0.5m (19.7 in) aperture reflecting telescope, the largest so far of any deep space mission, which allows it to take pictures of Mars with resolutions of 0.3m/pixel (1ft/pixel), resolving objects below a meter across. HiRISE has imaged Mars exploration rovers on the surface, including the ''Opportunity'' rover and the ongoing ''Curiosity'' mission. History In the late 1980s, of Ball Aerospace & Technologies began planning the kind of high-resolution imaging needed to support sample return and surface exploration of Mars. In early 2001 he teamed up with Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona to propose such a c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martian Polar Ice Caps
The planet Mars has two permanent polar ice caps. During a pole's winter, it lies in continuous darkness, chilling the surface and causing the deposition of 25–30% of the atmosphere into slabs of CO2 ice (dry ice). When the poles are again exposed to sunlight, the frozen CO2 sublimes. These seasonal actions transport large amounts of dust and water vapor, giving rise to Earth-like frost and large cirrus clouds. The caps at both poles consist primarily of water ice. Frozen carbon dioxide accumulates as a comparatively thin layer about one metre thick on the north cap in the northern winter, while the south cap has a permanent dry ice cover about 8 m thick. The northern polar cap has a diameter of about 1000 km during the northern Mars summer, and contains about 1.6 million cubic km of ice, which if spread evenly on the cap would be 2 km thick. (This compares to a volume of 2.85 million cubic km (km3) for the Greenland ice sheet.) The southern polar cap has a dia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mare Boreum Quadrangle
The Mare Boreum quadrangle is one of a series of 30 quadrangle maps of Mars used by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Astrogeology Research Program. The Mare Boreum quadrangle is also referred to as MC-1 (Mars Chart-1). Its name derives from an older name for a feature that is now called Planum Boreum, a large plain surrounding the polar cap. The quadrangle covers all of the Martian surface north of latitude 65°. It includes the north polar ice cap, which has a swirl pattern and is roughly across. Mariner 9 in 1972 discovered a belt of sand dunes that ring the polar ice deposits, which is across in some places and may be the largest dune field in the Solar System. The ice cap is surrounded by the vast plains of Planum Boreum and Vastitas Borealis. Close to the pole, there is a large valley, Chasma Boreale, that may have been formed from water melting from the ice cap. An alternative view is that it was made by winds coming off the cold pole. Another prominent fea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martian Dust Storm
The climate of Mars has been a topic of scientific curiosity for centuries, in part because it is the only terrestrial planet whose surface can be directly observed in detail from the Earth with help from a telescope. Although Mars is smaller than the Earth, 11% of Earth's mass, and 50% farther from the Sun than the Earth, its climate has important similarities, such as the presence of polar ice caps, seasonal changes and observable weather patterns. It has attracted sustained study from planetologists and climatologists. While Mars' climate has similarities to Earth's, including periodic ice ages, there are also important differences, such as much lower thermal inertia. Mars' atmosphere has a scale height of approximately , 60% greater than that on Earth. The climate is of considerable relevance to the question of whether life is or ever has been present on the planet. The climate briefly received more interest in the news due to NASA measurements indicating increased sublimat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thermal Emission Imaging System
The Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) is a camera on board the 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter. It images Mars in the visible and infrared parts of the electromagnetic spectrum in order to determine the thermal properties of the surface and to refine the distribution of minerals on the surface of Mars as determined by the Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES). Additionally, it helps scientists to understand how the mineralogy of Mars relates to its landforms, and it can be used to search for thermal hotspots in the Martian subsurface. THEMIS is managed from the Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State University and was built by the Santa Barbara Remote Sensing division of Raytheon Technologies Corporation, an American multinational conglomerate headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. The instrument is named after Themis, the goddess of justice in ancient Greek mythology. Infrared camera THEMIS detects thermal infrared energy emitted by the Martian surface at nine di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2001 Mars Odyssey
''2001 Mars Odyssey'' is a robotic spacecraft orbiting the planet Mars. The project was developed by NASA, and contracted out to Lockheed Martin, with an expected cost for the entire mission of US$297 million. Its mission is to use spectrometers and a thermal imager to detect evidence of past or present water and ice, as well as study the planet's geology and radiation environment. It is hoped that the data ''Odyssey'' obtains will help answer the question of whether life existed on Mars and create a risk-assessment of the radiation that future astronauts on Mars might experience. It also acts as a relay for communications between the ''Curiosity'' rover, and previously the Mars Exploration Rovers and ''Phoenix'' lander, to Earth. The mission was named as a tribute to Arthur C. Clarke, evoking the name of his and Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film '' 2001: A Space Odyssey''. ''Odyssey'' was launched April 7, 2001, on a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
