[meteorite-list] APL Mineral-Mapper Has Key Role in Selecting Next Mars Rover Landing Site

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:14:03 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <200710192014.NAA05767_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
Office of Communications and Public Affairs
Laurel, Maryland

Media Contact: Michael Buckley
(240) 228-7536 or (443) 778-7536
michael.buckley at jhuapl.edu

October 19, 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Note: Images to accompany this release are available at:
http://crism.jhuapl.edu/newscenter/articles/101907.php

APL MINERAL-MAPPER HAS KEY ROLE IN SELECTING NEXT MARS ROVER LANDING SITE

Scientists scouting potential landing sites for NASA's next Mars
rover mission are using new data from a powerful mineral-mapping
camera to narrow the site selection.

When NASA Mars Program officials and members of the Mars science
community gather in California next week to pare down the list of
candidate landing sites for the 2009 Mars Science Laboratory (MSL),
they can refer to 125 new images from the Compact Reconnaissance
Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM). The images and accompanying
analysis products are available on the CRISM Web site at
http://crism.jhuapl.edu/msl_landing_sites/.

Built and operated by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics
Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., CRISM is one of six science
instruments on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, currently circling
the planet.

"Since MSL will assess whether Mars ever had an environment capable
of supporting life, it will have to land in an area with a mineral
record indicative of past water," says Dr. Scott Murchie, CRISM
principal investigator from APL. "CRISM is critical to the selection
process because it is the only instrument on MRO with the spectral
power to 'see' the chemical makeup of the rocks."

One of CRISM's main mission objectives is to find and investigate
areas that were wet long enough to leave a mineral signature.
Offering greater capability to map spectral variations than any
similar instrument sent to another planet, CRISM can read 544
"colors" of reflected sunlight to detect minerals in the surface.

The imaging spectrometer is among MRO's cadre of advanced sensors
studying Mars in unprecedented detail and contributing to the MSL
landing site selection effort. This includes correlating CRISM's
spectral data with high-resolution pictures of boulders, craters,
sediment layers and other surface features acquired by the High
Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) and Context Camera
(CTX). "CRISM images provide the scientific criteria that will allow
the MSL team to narrow its choices," Murchie says. "By combining data
from the MRO instruments, we can create a complete picture of the
Martian surface."

The CRISM data release consists of user-friendly, color-coded,
thematic images. Different versions of each image show clays,
sulfates, and unaltered minerals that help tell the story of past
water and volcanic processes on Mars. The set also includes infrared
images of surface brightness and enhanced visible-color composites.
Each image covers a square area roughly 6 miles (10 kilometers) on a
side, with a spatial resolution of approximately 66 feet (20 meters) per pixel.

"The data products that we have generated for all the proposed MSL
landing sites are scaled in a similar manner. This should make it
easy for scientists and the public alike to distinguish between
landing sites that possess a wide range of rock types, from ones that
do not," says APL's Dr. Olivier Barnouin-Jha, who with Dr. Frank
Seelos (also of APL) assembled the products in this release. "Going
to a location with greater rock diversity will ensure that MSL
significantly enhances our understanding of the geological history of
Mars, including the history of water."

CRISM has mapped more than half the planet in its low-resolution mode
since MRO's two-year science mission began in November 2006, in
addition to making more than 2,500 high-resolution observations of
the surface and nearly 3,000 atmospheric observations.
APL, which has built more than 150 spacecraft instruments over the
past four decades, led the effort to develop, integrate, and test
CRISM. The CRISM team includes experts from universities, government
agencies and small businesses in the United States and abroad; visit
http://crism.jhuapl.edu for more information. Information about the
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Science Laboratory missions is
available online at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/. The Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology,
manages the MRO mission for the NASA Science Mission Directorate,
Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the prime
contractor and built the MRO spacecraft.
                                                        
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The Applied Physics Laboratory, a not-for-profit division of The
Johns Hopkins University, meets critical national challenges through
the innovative application of science and technology. For more
information, visit http://www.jhuapl.edu.
Received on Fri 19 Oct 2007 04:14:03 PM PDT