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Characterization of the Candidate Landing Region for Tianwen-1—China's First Mission to Mars
Liu, Wai Chung; Wu, Bo; Li, Yuan +7 more
This paper presents our efforts to characterize the candidate landing region (109°-133°E, 23°-30°N) for Tianwen-1, China's first mission to Mars, in terms of engineering safety and scientific significance. Topographic analysis reveals that the region has a low elevation around −4,230 m, and 98% of the region have slopes smaller than 8°. The geomor…
Model Age Derivation of Large Martian Impact Craters, Using Automatic Crater Counting Methods
Norman, C.; Lagain, A.; Servis, K. +3 more
Determining when an impact crater formed is a complex and tedious task. However, this knowledge is crucial to understanding the geological history of planetary bodies and, more specifically, gives information on erosion rate measurements, meteorite ejection location, impact flux evolution and the loss of a magnetic field. The derivation of an indi…
Termination of Solar Cycles and Correlated Tropospheric Variability
McIntosh, Scott W.; Leamon, Robert J.; Marsh, Daniel R.
The Sun provides the energy required to sustain life on Earth and drive our planet's atmospheric circulation. However, establishing a solid physical connection between solar and tropospheric variability has posed a considerable challenge. The canon of solar variability is derived from the 400 years of observations that demonstrates the waxing and …
Mars Methane Sources in Northwestern Gale Crater Inferred From Back Trajectory Modeling
Yung, Y. L.; Luo, Y.; Lin, J. C. +3 more
During its first seven years of operation, the Sample Analysis at Mars Tunable Laser Spectrometer (TLS) on board the Curiosity rover has detected seven methane spikes above a low background abundance in Gale crater. The methane spikes are likely sourced by surface emission within or around Gale crater. Here, we use inverse Lagrangian modeling tech…
Subsurface Reflectors Detected by SHARAD Reveal Stratigraphy and Buried Channels Over Central Elysium Planitia, Mars
Tao, Yu; Muller, Jan-Peter; Xiong, Siting +3 more
The Central Elysium Planitia (CEP) is one of the youngest geological units on Mars and displays evidence of volcanic and fluvial activities on the surface. The origin of the CEP material has long been debated with a range of hypotheses from purely fluvial to solely volcanic origins. This study presents a comprehensive investigation of SHAllow RADa…
Finding SEIS North on Mars: Comparisons Between SEIS Sundial, Inertial and Imaging Measurements and Consequences for Seismic Analysis
Lognonné, P.; Banerdt, W. B.; Golombek, M. P. +10 more
In this paper, we present the results obtained in the determination of the true north direction on Mars by using a gnomon on the InSight mission and compare the measurements with either the North determination from the Inertial Measurement Unit and imaging analysis. The obtained measurement has been used to populate the SEIS orientation informatio…
Making an Onboard Reference Map From MRO/CTX Imagery for Mars 2020 Lander Vision System
Johnson, Andrew; Cheng, Yang; Ansar, Adnan
The Mars 2020 rover, Perseverance, landed in Jezero crater (18.4663°N, 77.4298°E) on February 18, 2021 to collect samples from Mars that could be returned to Earth by a future Mars Sample Return campaign. While providing a rich sampling opportunity, Jezero also contains numerous landing hazards including scarps, canyons, mesas, dune fields, rock f…
FPGA Design for On-Board Measurement of Intermittency From In-Situ Satellite Data
Echim, M. M.; Teodorescu, E.; Deak, N. +2 more
Intermittency is a fundamental property of space plasma dynamics, characterizing turbulent dynamical variables as well as passive scalars. Its qualitative and quantitative description from in-situ data requires an accurate estimation of the probability density functions (PDFs) of fluctuations and their moments, particularly the flatness, a normali…
A Parametric Shape Model Applied to Tracing the Migration of the Objects Near an Asteroid
Yu, Y.; Yan, Z. J.; Gao, Y. F. +3 more
In the past decades, space missions to small bodies (Galileo, OSIRIS-REx, Hayabusa, Hayabusa2, Chang'e 2, Rosetta, etc.) have enriched us greatly with voluminous new knowledge on our solar system. In situ observations by these missions have revealed the extreme complexity and remarkable diversity of the spatial environment around their target aste…