PDS logoPlanetary Data System
PDS Information
Find a Node - Use these links to navigate to any of the 8 publicly accessible PDS Nodes.

This bar indicates that you are within the PDS enterprise which includes 6 science discipline nodes and 2 support nodes which are overseen by the Project Management Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Each node is led by an expert in the subject discipline, supported by an advisory group of other practitioners of that discipline, and subject to selection and approval under a regular NASA Research Announcement.
Click here to return to the Photojournal Home Page Click here to view a list of Photojournal Image Galleries Photojournal_inner_header
Latest Images  |  Spacecraft & Technology  |  Animations  |  Space Images App  |  Feedback  |  Photojournal Search  

PIA03744: Odyssey/NS
 Target Name:  Mars
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  2001 Mars Odyssey
 Spacecraft:  2001 Mars Odyssey
 Instrument:  Gamma Ray Spectrometer Suite 
 Product Size:  663 x 1024 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  University of Arizona
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA03744.tif (890.3 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA03744.jpg (93.61 kB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

These two views of Mars were made with data taken by the neutron spectrometer component of NASA's Mars Odyssey gamma ray spectrometer suite. These maps show epithermal neutron flux, which is sensitive to the amount of hydrogen present.

The first view was made shortly after the Mars Odyssey science mission began in Feb. 2002, during late summer in the south. The magenta region in the south is due to large amounts of water ice buried a fraction of a meter beneath the surface. The amount of ice is approximately 60 percent by volume. At that time the buried ice in the north was not visible because it was covered with a thick cap of carbon dioxide (dry-ice) frost.

The second view was made in November 2002 as Mars enters summer in the north. In this view the ice-rich regions in the north are now visible because the thick carbon dioxide frost has evaporated, and the ice-rich regions in the south are beginning to be obscured by the formation of wintertime seasonal frost. The ice content in the north is even greater than it is in the south, though it is not yet known by how much.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Office of Space Science in Washington, D.C. Investigators at Arizona State University in Tempe, the University of Arizona in Tucson and NASA's Johnson Space Center,Houston, operate the science instruments. The gamma-ray spectrometer was provided by the University of Arizona in collaboration with the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, which provided the high-energy neutron detector, and the Los Alamos National Laboratories, New Mexico, which provided the neutron spectrometer. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Image Addition Date:
2002-12-10