Planet Mars: On the Floor of Mawrth Vallis | NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

Planet Mars: On the Floor of Mawrth Vallis | NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

Data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's CRISM instrument shows a localized, unique spectral phase consistent with polyhydrated sulfate or zeolite here on the Mawrth Vallis channel floor, with implications for the regional history. We want to look for potential textural differences between new hydrated mineral and adjacent clays.

Mawrth Vallis is a valley on Mars, located in the Oxia Palus quadrangle at 22.3°N, 343.5°E with an elevation approximately two kilometers below datum. Situated between the southern highlands and northern lowlands, the valley is a channel formed by massive flooding which occurred in Mars’ ancient past. It is an ancient water outflow channel with light-colored clay-rich rocks.

Prior to the selection of Gale Crater for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover mission, Mawrth Vallis was considered as a potential landing site because of the detection of a stratigraphic section rich in clay minerals. Clay minerals have implications for past aqueous environments as well as the potential to preserve biosignatures, making them ideal targets for the search for life on Mars.

The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) instrument, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado. 

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

“For 17 years, MRO has been revealing Mars to us as no one had seen it before,” said the mission’s project scientist, Rich Zurek of JPL.

Image cutout is less than 1 km (under a mile) top to bottom and the spacecraft altitude was 285 km (177 mi) and north is to the right.

Acquisition date

May 21, 2011

Local Mars time

14:05

Latitude (centered)

22.982°

Longitude (East)

341.496°

Spacecraft altitude

285.4 km (177.4 miles)

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Release Date: June 6, 2023

#NASA #Space #Astronomy #Science #Mars #Planet #RedPlanet #MawrthVallis #Valley #Clays #Biosignatures #Geology #Landscape #Terrain #Geoscience #MRO #MarsReconnaissanceOrbiter #Spacecraft #HiRISE #Camera #JPL #Caltech #UniversityOfArizona #BallAerospace #STEM #Education