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Gamma Ray Spectrometer (2001 Mars Odyssey)
The Gamma Ray Spectrometer (GRS) is a gamma-ray spectrometer on the ''2001 Mars Odyssey'' spacecraft, a space probe orbiting the planet Mars since 2001. Part of NASA's Mars Surveyor 2001 program, it returns geological data about Mars's surface such as identifying elements and the location of water. It is maintained by the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona in the United States. This instrument has mapped the distribution surface hydrogen, thought to trace water in the surface layer of Martian soil. GRS specifications The Gamma Ray Spectrometer weighs and uses 32 watts of power. Along with its cooler, it measures . The detector is a photodiode made of a germanium crystal, reverse biased to about 3 kilovolts, mounted at the end of a boom to minimize interferences from the gamma radiation produced by the spacecraft itself. Its spatial resolution is about . The neutron spectrometer is . The high-energy neutron detector measures . The instrument's ce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gamma-ray Spectrometer
A gamma-ray spectrometer (GRS) is an instrument for measuring the distribution (or spectrum—see figure) of the intensity of gamma radiation versus the energy of each photon. The study and analysis of gamma-ray spectra for scientific and technical use is called gamma spectroscopy, and gamma-ray spectrometers are the instruments which observe and collect such data. Because the energy of each photon of EM radiation is proportional to its frequency, gamma rays have sufficient energy that they are typically observed by counting individual photons. Gamma-ray spectroscopy Atomic nuclei have an energy-level structure somewhat analogous to the energy levels of atoms, so that they may emit (or absorb) photons of particular energies, much as atoms do, but at energies that are thousands to millions of times higher than those typically studied in optical spectroscopy. (Note that the short-wavelength high-energy end, of the atomic spectroscopy energy range (few eV to few hundred keV), gene ... [...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] |
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmosphere (less than 1% that of Earth's), and has a crust primarily composed of elements similar to Earth's crust, as well as a core made of iron and nickel. Mars has surface features such as impact craters, valleys, dunes and polar ice caps. It has two small and irregularly shaped moons, Phobos (moon), Phobos and Deimos (moon), Deimos. Some of the most notable surface features on Mars include Olympus Mons, the largest volcano and List of tallest mountains in the Solar System, highest known mountain in the Solar System and Valles Marineris, one of the largest canyons in the Solar System. The North Polar Basin (Mars), Borealis basin in the Northern Hemisphere covers approximately 40% of the planet and may be a la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), to give the U.S. space development effort a distinctly civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science. NASA has since led most American space exploration, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the 1968-1972 Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle. NASA supports the International Space Station and oversees the development of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System for the crewed lunar Artemis program, Commercial Crew spacecraft, and the planned Lunar Gateway space station. The agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program, which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mars Surveyor 2001
The Mars Surveyor 2001 project was a multi-part Mars exploration mission intended as a follow-up to Mars Surveyor '98. After the two probes of the 1998 project, Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander, were both lost, NASA's "better, faster, cheaper" exploration philosophy was re-evaluated, with a particular eye on the two 2001 project probes. As a result, the mission, along with the launch of its lander and rover, were canceled in May 2000, but the decision was made to continue development with its orbiter counterpart. The orbiter launched as ''2001 Mars Odyssey'' in April 2001, in a mission independent of the Mars Surveyor project, and reached Mars in October 2001. After being placed in a cleanroom in 2001 and stored since, the nearly-completed lander component was eventually reused to fly the '' Phoenix'' mission, which launched in August 2007 and landed successfully on Mars in May 2008. Spacecraft Orbiter Lander The 2001 Surveyor lander spacecraft was built und ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lunar And Planetary Laboratory
The Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) is a research center for planetary science located in Tucson, Arizona. It is also a graduate school, constituting the Department of Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona. LPL is one of the world's largest programs dedicated exclusively to planetary science in a university setting. The Lunar and Planetary Lab collection is held at the University of Arizona Special Collections Library. Background LPL was founded in 1960 by astronomer Gerard Kuiper. Kuiper had long been a pioneer in observing the Solar System, especially the Moon, at a time when this was unfashionable among astronomers. Among his contributions are the discovery of Miranda and Nereid, the detection of carbon dioxide on Mars and of methane on Titan, and the prediction of the Kuiper Belt. Kuiper came to Tucson looking for greater independence than he had enjoyed at the University of Chicago, the chance to build a community dedicated to solar system studies, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Arizona
The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. The university is part of the Association of American Universities and the Universities Research Association. In the former, it is the only member from the state of Arizona. The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity". The University of Arizona is one of three universities governed by the Arizona Board of Regents. , the university enrolled 49,471 students in 19 separate colleges/schools, including the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson and Phoenix and the James E. Rogers College of Law, and is affiliated with two academic medical centers ( Banner – University Medical Center Tucson and Banner – University Medical Center Phoenix). In 2021, University of Arizona acquired ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, and highly combustible. Hydrogen is the most abundant chemical substance in the universe, constituting roughly 75% of all normal matter.However, most of the universe's mass is not in the form of baryons or chemical elements. See dark matter and dark energy. Stars such as the Sun are mainly composed of hydrogen in the plasma state. Most of the hydrogen on Earth exists in molecular forms such as water and organic compounds. For the most common isotope of hydrogen (symbol 1H) each atom has one proton, one electron, and no neutrons. In the early universe, the formation of protons, the nuclei of hydrogen, occurred during the first second after the Big Bang. The emergence of neutral hydrogen atoms throughout the universe occurred about 370,000 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martian Soil
Martian soil is the fine regolith (a blanket of unconsolidated, loose, heterogeneous superficial deposits covering solid rock) found on the surface of Mars. Its properties can differ significantly from those of terrestrial soil, including its toxicity due to the presence of perchlorates. The term ''Martian soil'' typically refers to the finer fraction of regolith. So far, no samples have been returned to Earth, the goal of a Mars sample-return mission, but the soil has been studied remotely with the use of Mars rovers and Mars orbiters. On Earth, the term "soil" usually includes organic content. In contrast, planetary scientists adopt a functional definition of soil to distinguish it from rocks. Rocks generally refer to 10 cm scale and larger materials (e.g., fragments, breccia, and exposed outcrops) with high thermal inertia, with areal fractions consistent with the Viking Infrared Thermal Mapper (IRTM) data, and immobile under current aeolian (wind) conditions. Consequen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spectrometers
A spectrometer () is a scientific instrument used to separate and measure spectral components of a physical phenomenon. Spectrometer is a broad term often used to describe instruments that measure a continuous variable of a phenomenon where the spectral components are somehow mixed. In visible light a spectrometer can separate white light and measure individual narrow bands of color, called a spectrum. A mass spectrometer measures the spectrum of the masses of the atoms or molecules present in a gas. The first spectrometers were used to split light into an array of separate colors. Spectrometers were developed in early studies of physics, astronomy, and chemistry. The capability of spectroscopy to determine chemical composition drove its advancement and continues to be one of its primary uses. Spectrometers are used in astronomy to analyze the chemical composition of stars and planets, and spectrometers gather data on the origin of the universe. Examples of spectrometers are d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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