Surface properties of Mars' polar layered deposits and polar landing sites

Surface Properties of Mars’ Polar Layered Deposits and Polar Landing Sites. A

Density of Mars' south polar layered deposits.

Both poles of Mars are hidden beneath caps of layered ice. We calculated the density of the south polar layered deposits by combining the gravity field obtained from initial results of radio tracking of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter with existing surface topography from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft and basal topography from the Mars Advanced Radar fo...

South Polar Layered Deposits of Mars: The cratering record

[1] Data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) and Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) instruments aboard the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) were used in a detailed search of a selected part of the South Polar Layered Deposits (SPLD) for impact craters. Impact craters with diameters from 0.8 to 5 km were identified from a MOLA-derived shaded relief map and were primarily validated using individual MOL...

Surface textures of Mars’ north polar layered deposits: A framework for interpretation and future exploration

Background: The deposition of layers within the north polar layered deposits (NPLD) is thought to be controlled by changing climate influencing the relative proportions of ice and dust accumulated in the polar regions; thus the NPLD are considered to contain the record of recent climate change on Mars and are important targets for future exploration. The physical properties and history of these...

Geologic Evolution of Mars’ North Polar Layered Deposits and Related Materials from Mars Odyssey THEMIS

Planetary geodynamo are driven bythermal or compositional convection in the core. Marsis thought to have possessed a geodynamo whichceased ~0.5 Gyr after the formation of the planet. Apossible, but ad hoc, explanation for this behavior is isan early episode of plate tectonics, which drove coreconvection by rapid cooling of the mantle. In this pa-per we examine an alt...