Diverse aqueous environments during Mars' first billion years: the emerging view from orbital visible-near infrared spectroscopy

Abstract

The past decade of Mars missions has been a golden age of Mars exploration with a focus on the habitability of our next-door neighbor planet. With every new set of successful measurements from surface rovers or from orbit a fresh and often surprising perspective emerges on the geological and geochemical processes that brought Mars to its present cold and dry state. In the first contribution of this series (Geochemical News 141) we surveyed the recent progress from several such missions and examined the measurements we hope to make from instruments on a highly sophisticated rover (Curiosity) to be launched in 2011. With the present contribution, Bethany Ehlmann, one of the recent leaders in analyzing and interpreting Mars orbital infrared spectroscopy data will describe these techniques and results and the new view of the history of Mars that is emerging from these studies.

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