[meteorite-list] Fw: NASA Spacecraft Sees Ice on Mars Exposed by Meteor Impacts

From: E.P. Grondine <epgrondine_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:24:20 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <818735.80920.qm_at_web36901.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

I am certain that most here will want this info, so just in case Ron Baalke does not post this. Here goes:

--- On Thu, 9/24/09, NASA News <hqnews at mediaservices.nasa.gov> wrote:

> From: NASA News <hqnews at mediaservices.nasa.gov>
> Subject: NASA Spacecraft Sees Ice on Mars Exposed by Meteor Impacts
> To: "NASA News" <hqnews at mediaservices.nasa.gov>
> Date: Thursday, September 24, 2009, 2:22 PM
> Sept. 24, 2009
>
> Dwayne Brown
> Headquarters, Washington
> 202-358-1726
> dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov
>
>
> Guy Webster
> Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
> 818-354-6278
> guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov
>
>
> RELEASE: 09-224
>
> NASA SPACECRAFT SEES ICE ON MARS EXPOSED BY METEOR IMPACTS
>
> PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has
> revealed
> frozen water hiding just below the surface of mid-latitude
> Mars. The
> spacecraft's observations were obtained from orbit after
> meteorites
> excavated fresh craters on the Red Planet.
>
> Scientists controlling instruments on the orbiter found
> bright ice
> exposed at five Martian sites with new craters that range
> in depth
> from approximately 1.5 feet to 8 feet. The craters did not
> exist in
> earlier images of the same sites. Some of the craters show
> a thin
> layer of bright ice atop darker underlying material. The
> bright
> patches darkened in the weeks following initial
> observations, as the
> freshly exposed ice vaporized into the thin Martian
> atmosphere. One
> of the new craters had a bright patch of material large
> enough for
> one of the orbiter's instruments to confirm it is water
> ice.
>
> The finds indicate water ice occurs beneath Mars' surface
> halfway
> between the north pole and the equator, a lower latitude
> than
> expected in the Martian climate.
>
> "This ice is a relic of a more humid climate from perhaps
> just several
> thousand years ago," said Shane Byrne of the University of
> Arizona.
>
> Byrne is a member of the team operating the orbiter's High
> Resolution
> Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE camera, which
> captured the
> unprecedented images. Byrne and 17 co-authors report the
> findings in
> the Sept. 25 edition of the journal Science.
>
> "We now know we can use new impact sites as probes to look
> for ice in
> the shallow subsurface," said Megan Kennedy of Malin Space
> Science
> Systems in San Diego, a co-author of the paper and member
> of the team
> operating the orbiter's Context Camera.
>
> During a typical week, the Context Camera returns more than
> 200 images
> of Mars that cover a total area greater than California.
> The camera
> team examines each image, sometimes finding dark spots that
> fresh,
> small craters make in terrain covered with dust. Checking
> earlier
> photos of the same areas can confirm a feature is new. The
> team has
> found more than 100 fresh impact sites, mostly closer to
> the equator
> than the ones that revealed ice.
>
> An image from the camera on Aug. 10, 2008, showed apparent
> cratering
> that occurred after an image of the same ground was taken
> 67 days
> earlier. The opportunity to study such a fresh impact site
> prompted a
> look by the orbiter's higher resolution camera on Sept. 12,
> 2009,
> confirming a cluster of small craters.
>
> "Something unusual jumped out," Byrne said. "We observed
> bright
> material at the bottoms of the craters with a very distinct
> color. It
> looked a lot like ice."
>
> The bright material at that site did not cover enough area
> for a
> spectrometer instrument on the orbiter to determine its
> composition.
> However, a Sept. 18, 2008, image of a different
> mid-latitude site
> showed a crater that had not existed eight months earlier.
> This
> crater had a larger area of bright material.
>
> "We were excited about it, so we did a quick-turnaround
> observation,"
> said co-author Kim Seelos of Johns Hopkins University
> Applied Physics
> Laboratory in Laurel, Md., "Everyone thought it was water
> ice, but it
> was important to get the spectrum for confirmation."
>
> The Mars orbiter is designed to facilitate coordination and
> quick
> response by the science teams, making it possible to detect
> and
> understand rapidly changing features. The ice exposed by
> fresh
> impacts suggests that NASA's Viking 2 lander, digging into
>
> mid-latitude Mars in 1976, might have struck ice if it had
> dug four
> inches deeper.
>
> The Viking 2 mission, which consisted of an orbiter and a
> lander,
> launched in September 1975 and became one of the first two
> space
> probes to land successfully on the Martian surface. The
> Viking 1 and
> 2 landers characterized the structure and composition of
> the
> atmosphere and surface. They also conducted on-the-spot
> biological
> tests for life on another planet.
>
> NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena manages the
> Mars
> Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission
> Directorate in
> Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built
> the
> spacecraft. The Context Camera was built and is operated by
> Malin.
> The University of Arizona operates the HiRISE camera, which
> Ball
> Aerospace & Technologies Corp., in Boulder, Colo.,
> built. The Johns
> Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory led the
> effort to build
> the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer and
> operates it in
> coordination with an international team of researchers.
>
> To view images of the craters and learn more about the Mars
>
> Reconnaissance Orbiter, visit:
>
>
>
> http://www.nasa.gov/mro
>
> ???
> -end-
>
>
>
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Received on Thu 24 Sep 2009 04:24:20 PM PDT