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Selecting Erosion- and Deposition-Dominated Zones in the Jezero Delta Using a Water Flow Model for Targeting Future In Situ Mars Surface Missions
Steinmann, Vilmos; Kereszturi, Ákos; Bahia, Rickbir Singh
Identifying surface sites with significant astrobiological potential on Mars requires a comprehensive understanding of past geological processes and conditions there, including the shallow subsurface region. Numerical modelling could distinguish between regions dominated by erosion and those characterized by sediment accumulation in ancient wet en…
Water Ice Resources on the Shallow Subsurface of Mars: Indications to Rover-Mounted Radar Observation
Orosei, Roberto; Zheng, Naihuan; Ding, Chunyu +1 more
The planet Mars is the most probable among the terrestrial planets in our solar system to support human settlement or colonization in the future. The detection of water ice or liquid water on the shallow subsurface of Mars is a crucial scientific objective for both the Chinese Tianwen-1 and United States Mars 2020 missions, which were launched in …
Salt Constructs in Paleo-Lake Basins as High-Priority Astrobiology Targets
Cabrol, Nathalie A.; Phillips, Michael S.; McInenly, Michael +4 more
In extreme environments, microbial organisms reside in pockets with locally habitable conditions. Micro-climates conducive to the persistence of life in an otherwise inhospitable environment—"refugia"—are spatially restricted and can be micro- to centimeters in extent. If martian microbes are preserved in fossil refugia, this presents a double-edg…
Remote Sensing and Data Analyses on Planetary Topography
Lin, Shih-Yuan; Xiao, Haifeng; Kim, Jungrack
Planetary mapping product established by topographic remote sensing is one of the most significant achievements of contemporary technology. Modern planetary remote sensing technology now measures the topography of familiar solid planets/satellites such as Mars and the Moon with sub-meter precision, and its applications extend to the Kuiper Belt of…
Boundary Delineator for Martian Crater Instances with Geographic Information and Deep Learning
Liu, Danyang; Cheng, Weiming; Qian, Zhen +3 more
Detecting impact craters on the Martian surface is a critical component of studying Martian geomorphology and planetary evolution. Accurately determining impact crater boundaries, which are distinguishable geomorphic units, is important work in geological and geomorphological mapping. The Martian topography is more complex than that of the Moon, m…
Spectral Clustering of CRISM Datasets in Jezero Crater Using UMAP and k-Means
Thomas, Nicolas; Rossi, Angelo Pio; Fernandes, Michael +2 more
In this paper, we expand upon our previous research on unsupervised learning algorithms to map the spectral parameters of the Martian surface. Previously, we focused on the VIS-NIR range of hyperspectral data from the CRISM imaging spectrometer instrument onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to relate to other correspondent imager data sourc…
Resolving Ambiguities in SHARAD Data Analysis Using High-Resolution Digital Terrain Models
Kofman, Wlodek; Herique, Alain; Zine, Sonia +2 more
The SHAllow RADar (SHARAD) onboard Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is a 20 MHz Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) that probes the first hundreds of meters of the Martian subsurface. In order to interpret the detection of subsurface interfaces with ground penetrating radars, simulations using Digital Terrain Models (DTM) are necessary. This methodolo…
Unveiling the Subsurface of Late Amazonian Lava Flows at Echus Chasma, on Mars
Mansilla, Federico; Zorzano, María-Paz; Giannakis, Iraklis +1 more
The Echus-Kasei region on Mars has been exposed to different episodic volcanic, fluvial, and glacial events in Amazonian time. The goal of the present work is to demonstrate the usefulness of radar instruments to find preserved late Amazonian subsurface structures that may have been encapsulated underneath recent lava flows on Mars. We have analys…
Evidence of Widespread Volcanic Activity near Hebrus Valles on Mars Revealed by SHARAD
Hamilton, Christopher W.; Holt, John W.; Nerozzi, Stefano +1 more
Hebrus Valles is an outflow channel system in the plain-forming terrains of southeastern Utopia Planitia, Mars. These terrains may have formed through a combination of liquid water and volcanic processes, yet their nature, subsurface structure, and composition remain unclear. We investigate these terrains by mapping subsurface reflectors across 54…
GBB-Nadir and KLIMA: Two Full Physics Codes for the Computation of the Infrared Spectrum of the Planetary Radiation Escaping to Space
Dinelli, Bianca Maria; Del Bianco, Samuele; Castelli, Elisa +7 more
In 2019 the Far-Infrared Outgoing Radiation Understanding and Monitoring (FORUM) mission was selected to be the 9th Earth Explorer mission of the European Space Agency (ESA). In the preparatory phase of the mission there was the need for accurate and versatile codes to compute the spectrally resolved Earth radiation escaping to space ( outgoing lo…