TORONTO – Amazing new images of deep canyons and spider freezing deposits on Mars, as well as new gassy discoveries, mock the world of science in a month already full of red planet news.
Last summer, three new missions to Mars began – a new NASA rover, the first rover in China, and an orbiter from the United Arab Emirates – two of which reached the planet earlier in the week, with a NASA rover ready for friction later this month.
Although they have attracted a lot of attention, they are not the only ongoing projects in Mars.
In 2016, the European Space Agency’s ExoMars program launched the Trace Gas Orbiter, armed with a camera called “CaSSIS” and several scientific instruments that will help it detect gases to better understand the shape of the planet’s atmosphere. .
Since its launch, the orbiter has been busy. The CaSSIS camera has been taking very high-resolution photographs of the planet’s surface, illuminating geological structures and the surface of Mars ’pockmark in detail. An Instagram account set up for the device features the best of its camera roll, with a scientific explanation accompanied by photos of different regions of the planet.
“Valles Marineris is very large over 4,000 km long and over seven kilometers deep in places,” reads one end of 5 February on a picture showing a rugged green and gray landscape. “This is as far as the distance from Madrid to Moscow, and about six times deeper than the deepest parts of the Grand Canyon.”
GAS ‘WITHOUT DANGER
Finding new gas is probably harder than pictures from another planet. For the first time, the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter has discovered halogen gas in the planet’s atmosphere. On Wednesday, the ESA announced the discovery of the hydrogen chloride orbiter. The results, published in the journal Science Advances, found that sea salts on the planet’s surface, possibly left by long-gone oceans, rise into the atmosphere through winds, where they reaction with water vapor rising from ice caps to form hydrogen chloride. .
“You need a water valve to release chlorine and you need water by-products – hydrogen – to create hydrogen chloride. Water is essential in this chemistry, ”Kevin Olsen, a senior scientist with Oxford University, said in a press release.
He said hydrogen chloride in the atmosphere is rising in response to major dust storms in the southern hemisphere.
“We are thrilled to see our sensing instruments detecting unprecedented gas in the Mars atmosphere,” said Oleg Korablev, chief investigator of the Atmospheric Chemistry Suite instrument on the orbiter. “Our analysis links the generation and degradation of hydrogen chloride gas to the surface of Mars. ”
Trace gases make up less than one percent of a planet’s atmosphere, so hydrogen chloride is not in much, researchers said. But the discovery gives us a new perspective on the shape of the red planet. ExoMars learns more about the history of water on Mars by monitoring water vapor as it rises into the atmosphere. According to researchers, the water mist reveals the loss of large amounts of water over time on Mars, which supports theories that the planet was once home to more water than is visible. today in ice caps.
The ExoMars program is ready for rover launch in 2022.