The Geometry in Space Project

Sponsored by the Indiana Space Grants Consortium and Ball State University

 

Evaluating your landing sites

 

Now that you have located several landing sites, you need to evaluate their potential value as destinations, using available climate and mineral data.  Surveyors such as THEMIS, the Thermal Emission Imaging System aboard the Mars Odyssey spacecraft, have collected this data.

Click on the satellite below to learn more about THEMIS.

 

 

Your present mission is to compare the climate conditions and mineral deposits at each site, in order to choose a good landing site.  THEMIS can help, because it has detected and sent back to Earth climate data such as temperature.  However, THEMIS also detects infrared in order to help detect various minerals. 

 

More data was collected by TES, a similar instrument aboard the 1996 Mars Global Surveyor.  The purpose of TES (Thermal Emission Spectrometer) is to measure the heat emitted from various locations on Mars.  This technique can tell us about the geology and atmosphere of Mars. 

 

Questions

1.      On Earth, different materials look and feel different.  How can you distinguish between copper and silver?  How can you tell the difference between aluminum and tin?  How do lava rocks and slate rocks feel different?

2.      On Earth, some materials hold heat better than others. On a playground, how do wood chips, asphalt, concrete, and metal bars compare?   

 

Click on the thermal globe below, created by TES, to learn more about how thermal energy can help to detect minerals.

 

Activities

1.      In a similar way, minerals emit different levels of heat.  Go to this location on the TES site to learn more about why and how thermal data is measured. 

2.      To learn more about the minerals at the south polar cap and other sites, go to this location.   

3.      For each of the proposed landing sites, locate THEMIS and TES data.  What can you expect to find at each of the sites?  Which site seems to be the most varied and interesting?

 

Finding the daily Martian weather report

 

Mars, like Earth, experiences weather changes.  For a seasonal report of Mars weather, click on the cloud formations below. 

 

Afternoon clouds over the Tharsis volcanoes and Valles Marineris in April 1999 (Mars Orbiter Camera image courtesy of NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems)

 

 

Questions

1.      Does Mars experience summer/winter seasons?

2.      Is the weather at the Martian poles similar to that on Earth?

3.      How is Martian weather distinguished near volcanoes?

 

Activities

1.      Determine the expected weather for each of the potential landing sites. Use the link below to connect to seasonal weather information.

 

2.      Based on your thermal and climate information, rank the potential landing sites by their variety and feasibility.