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There are many people in Mars exploration circles who see Marineris Valley as a storytelling place ripe for human exploration that can reveal the history of the planet and its ability to support microbial life.
However, what is the best way to explore the multifaceted geology in this area? Will future Red Planet crews be able to safely dive into this vast canyon system? And what awaits those who explore the vast region known as the Grand Canyon of Mars?
Valles Marineris is a huge feature; a system of canyons traversing the Martian surface for 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers), covering about one-fifth of the circumference of Mars. At some points this colossal chasm is up to 125 miles (200 km) wide. In some places, the bottom of the canyon reaches a depth of 5 miles (8 km).
Bottom line: it’s a lot deeper than Earth’s Grand Canyon.
Connected: Glaciers on Mars likely helped carve out the ‘Grand Canyon’ of the Red Planet
To encourage exploration of the Vale Marineris in situ, some scientists have identified and provisionally named an area known as “Noctic Landing”. Its strategic location allows for the shortest surface excursions to the Martian volcanic plateau of Tarshish as well as the Mariner Valley, that majestic feature and region on the Red Planet that reveals the longest record of the geology and evolution of Mars over time.
Tarshish is the region of Mars that has had the longest and most extensive volcanic history and may still be volcanically active. Some of the youngest lava flows on Mars have been found on the western slopes of the Tarshish Bulge.
In addition, these streams are within reach of future pressurized all-terrain vehicle routes.
Priority Science
“I think that when it comes to planning for manned missions to Mars, we may no longer be able to think of just location-independent conditional scientific goals,” said Pascal Lee, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California. . SETI Institute.
Lee is the chairman of the Mars Institute, an international non-governmental, non-profit research organization dedicated to advancing scientific research, exploration, and public understanding of Mars. He is also director of the NASA Haughton-Mars Project, an international multidisciplinary field research project focused on the exploration of Mars analogs at the site of the Haughton impact crater on Devon Island in the high Arctic.
We can, and should, right now, be looking for human landing sites that can accomplish most, if not all, of our top scientific priorities, Li told Space.com. This human landing zone is likely to offer several ways to extract water in situ – which a robotic reconnaissance mission could establish – and where it makes sense to establish a base for long-term research, he said.
At the crossroads
Lee is fascinated by the fact that such a place, which he calls Noctis Landing, is supposedly a flat transitional area between Noctis Labyrinthus (Latin for “labyrinth of the night”) and Valles Marineris proper.
Noctis Landing not only offers a large number and wide range of regions of interest for short-term exploration, but is strategically located at the crossroads between Tarshish and the Marineris Valleys, which are key to long-term exploration. The area is notable for its labyrinthine system of steep-walled deep valleys.
“If you go east or south from Noctis Landing, you’ll go deeper into Mariner Valley and you can find signs of past life,” Lee said. “If you travel west or north of Noctis, you’ll climb the giant volcanoes of Mars with their many caves and find life in existence.”
No climbing required
As a result, the setting of Noctis Landing is unique, as it is located literally at the junction of the search for signs of past and present life on Mars.
As for exploring Valles Marineris, a key benefit of Noctis Landing is that you can access all of the rock layers of the canyon without resorting to rock climbing, Lee said.
“Thanks to the giant Audemance impact crater near Noctis Jetty, the giant slabs of the Valle Marineris canyon walls have been laid flat there, and you can explore them, layer by layer, just by driving along the canyon floor,” Lee added. .
hidden water
Late last year, Igor Mitrofanov of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Russia, reported that a significant amount of hidden water had been discovered in the central part of Mars’ impressive canyon system, the Marineris Valley.
The observation was carried out using the ExoMars (TGO) Orbital Gas Orbiter of the European Space Agency and Roscosmos. Mitrofanov is the Principal Investigator of the High-Resolution Epithermal Neutron Detector (FREND) neutron telescope TGO. This tool displays hydrogen — a measure of water content — in the topmost meter of Martian soil.
Mitrofanov and colleagues have found evidence of an unusually high hydrogen content in the heart of the Mariner Valley on Mars.
An incomprehensible combination of conditions
“With TGO, we can look one meter below this dusty layer and see what is really happening under the surface of Mars, and, most importantly, discover water-rich ‘oases’ that could not be detected with previous instruments,” said Mitrofanov. (will open in a new tab) in a statement released by the ESA.
“Assuming that the hydrogen we see is bound to water molecules, up to 40% of the near-surface material in this region appears to be water,” Mitrofanov said.
As the ESA said in a statement, the discovery suggests that “there must be some special, as yet unclear, combination of conditions in the Mariner Valley to conserve water – or that it is being replenished in some way.”
Mitrofanov and his collaborators published their work (will open in a new tab) in the March 2022 issue of the journal Icarus, which stated: “Such ice not only represents an intriguing material for finding frozen fragments of proto-life or complex organic molecules from the early Martian era, but is also an indispensable natural resource for future exploration of Mars. it’s easy to use.”
banks of fog
NASA’s Lee highlighted an intriguing finding that fog is common in the Marineris Valley. “While the average Martian atmosphere is generally thought to contain too little water vapor to be compressible and exploitable, the presence of icy fog, the most likely explanation for fog banks often filling the Mariner Valleys, indicates that the Martian atmosphere may be supersaturated with water in places, perhaps to the point worth extracting,” he said.
The presence of fog in the Mariner Valley also suggests that at least some of the hydrogen detected by Mitrofanov and colleagues is most likely in the form of H2O, and not just water of hydration in minerals, Li said.
Take off into the air
The clearance of Valles Marineris from its scientific assets could be complemented by airborne vehicles, said Abigail Freiman, a Mars Science Laboratory research assistant and associate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
This view is clearly supported by the success of NASA’s Ingenuity Martian helicopter in Jezero Crater.
“We can start imagining all sorts of possibilities for future aerial exploration of Mars,” Freiman told Space.com. “One of the benefits of exploring Mars from the air is the ability to travel much longer distances through terrain that would be too treacherous for rovers.”
Freiman said Valles Marineris is one example of a site that could really benefit from helicopter reconnaissance. “This platform could allow us to explore patches of truly ancient crust exposed in the canyon walls, steep layered sedimentary deposits in the center of the canyon, and even mysterious repetitive slope lines that occur on steep slopes throughout the Mariner Valley and may be formed. very salty liquid water.
Studying these features, Freiman added, “will help us answer questions about the entire history of Mars, from the first formation to the present day, and will provide unprecedented insight into the mechanisms that influence the climate and habitability of Mars, as well as rocky worlds.” beyond our solar system.”
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