2003 SPACE SCIENCE VIDEOTAPES |
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Tape Title | Record ID | Date Produced | TRT: |
Synopsis |
| PLENTIFUL WATER DETECTED IN MARS NORTHERN HEMISPHERE | G03-043 | 06/26/03 | 00:06:56 | NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft is revealing new details about a changeable array of frozen layers on northern Mars. Odyssey's neutron and gamma-ray sensors have tracked seasonal changes as layers of "dry ice" carbon-dioxide frost or snow accumulate during northern Mars' winter and then dissipate in the spring to expose a permafrost soil layer rich in water ice. The research is presented in a paper in the June 27, 2003 issue of the journal SCIENCE.
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TAPE CONTENTS: |
| ITEM (1): Plentiful Martian Water Ice - Summer View - Researchers used measurements of martian neutrons combined with height measurements from the laser altimeter on another NASA spacecraft, Mars Global Surveyor, to monitor the amount of ice during the northern winter and spring seasons. Scientists say that in some regions, the water-ice content is more than 90% by volume and that this may be where some of the water went that once was in lakes or small seas on the surface. This sequence begins with a "true-color" mosaic of Mars from the Viking orbiter. The second image shows the concentration of water ice, shown in blue, during the martian summer months.
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| ITEM (2): Martian Water Ice - Winter/Summer Comparison - The amount of water detected by Odyssey varies seasonally. Each martian winter, a layer of carbon dioxide ice and snow is deposited in the northern hemisphere. This layer covers up some of the water ice. In the summer, when the carbon-dioxide layer dissipates, significantly more water ice can be seen. This sequence begins with the Viking "true-color" mosaic. The sequence then shows the difference between water ice observed (shown in blue) during the winter months (second image) and summer months (third image).
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| ITEM (3): Mars Water Ice Elements - Unedited views of the water ice detected by Mars Odyssey.
a) Viking mosaic
b) Winter view
c) Summer view
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| ITEM (4): Ski Mars! Mystery of the Martian Snow - Over the course of a Martian year, which consists of 687 Earth days, as much as a third of Mars' tenuous carbon dioxide (CO2) atmosphere "freezes out" during the winter in the northern and southern hemispheres. For years, scientists wondered how the caps changed during the year. How much carbon dioxide 'snow' is deposited each season? Are the frost deposits more like snow or more like ice? This tour of the northern ice cap was generated using the 3-D topography generated from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) instrument onboard the MGS combined with a mosaic from the Viking missions. (file from G01-083)
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| ITEM (5): Martian Snow Depth Revealed - Scientists made precise measurements from the orbiting laser over the course of the Martian year to create a portrait of the changing depth of frozen carbon dioxide. The MOLA results show that a maximum of 1.5 to 2 meters of frozen material are deposited during the Martian winter. During the summer, the frozen CO2 evaporates and returns to the atmosphere. (file from G01-083)
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