Using instruments on NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft, surprised scientists have found enormous quantities of buried treasure lying just under the surface of Mars — enough water ice to fill Lake Michigan twice over. And that may just be the tip of the iceberg. “This is really amazing. This is the best direct evidence we have of subsurface water ice on Mars. We were hopeful that we could find evidence of ice, but what we have found is much more ice than we ever expected,” said Dr. William Boynton, principal investigator for Odyssey’s gamma ray spectrometer suite at the University of Arizona, Tucson.
May 21st, 2002
New Mexico gadget hints at water on Red Planet The Albuquerque Tribune
When the Mars Observer spacecraft disappeared into the cold void of space nine years ago, it broke Bill Feldman’s heart. Feldman, 62, a Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist, had worked since 1984 to develop an instrument for the spacecraft called a neutron spectrometer. There was no room to fit the instrument, which is smaller than a shoe box and weighs about 8 pounds, on subsequent missions to the planet until the Mars Odyssey spacecraft. It took nearly a decade, but Feldman finally got a second chance with Odyssey, which was launched in early 2001 and successfully reached orbit in October. A few months ago, the instrument returned some surprising results – including showing that hydrogen, which many think indicates water, is more abundant on Mars than previously believed.
May 15th, 2002
Nightwatch On Mars
There is a dark side to Mars. Experts studying the reddish globe in the infrared see a wonderland of nighttime surprise. Through the art of sunless science, researchers are trying to discern whether Mars is a percolating planet of still huffing volcanoes and hot shot geysers. Since nudging itself into a science orbit around the planet in February, NASA’s Mars Odyssey has been busily snapping images of martian terrain in both infrared and visible light. That job belongs to the probe’s Thermal Emission Imaging System – better known in spectral splendor shorthand as THEMIS. “It’s like wearing night vision goggles. With the nighttime infrared
May 2nd, 2002
Revealing the Red Planet: Free Lectures on an Odyssey to Mars
There is good reason Mars is named after the Roman god of war. It has been a battle getting to and researching the elusive red planet. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, continues to lead NASA’s exploration of Mars. In a pair of free lectures titled “The Odyssey to Mars,” JPL’s newly appointed Mars Odyssey project manager, Roger Gibbs, will discuss the challenges of Mars exploration. The first lecture will be held May 9 at JPL, and the second on May 10 at Pasadena City College. A Webcast of the lecture will be available at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 9.
April 7th, 2002
Mars Odyssey Observes First Anniversary in Space
What a year this has been for the Mars Odyssey team! The excitement of launch last April 7, the arrival at Mars, the long, sometimes tedious aerobraking concluded so successfully, the beginning of the mapping phase …. The detailed pictures the camera system is taking, letting scientists get closer and closer to Mars’ mysteries …. The evidence from the gamma ray spectrometer showing more hydrogen in Mars’ southern hemisphere than was known before …. The drama of the martian radiation environment experiment – as it turned out, the instrument was just taking a long nap ….
April 5th, 2002
Space Probe: There’s Water On Mars DigitalJournal.com
The search for water on the planet Mars and with it, possible forms of life, is one of the main tasks of the NASA space probe “Mars Odyssey 2001”. And after its initial exploratory work, all the doubts have been removed, to the excitement of the scientific community. “There is a great deal of ice on Mars. The signals we’re receiving are loud and clear,” said jubilant planetary scientist William Boynton at the first press conference by the U.S. space agency NASA about the start of the probe’s work.
April 4th, 2002
Mars Odyssey’s Picture of the Day: Naktong Valles
Scientists are releasing a picture each weekday from the Mars Odyssey spacecraft. Odyssey’s Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) captures the images as the craft orbits Mars. The photos are not yet fully calibrated for scientific use, and so no science findings are being discussed, said researchers who operate the camera from Arizona State University.
March 29th, 2002
New probe offers daily dose of Mars pictures
NASA officials this week released the first of what could be a daily flow of images of the Red Planet, snapped by a camera aboard the Mars Odyssey spacecraft.
March 27th, 2002
Odyssey Picture of the Day
Mars is now open for daily sightseeing. Beginning March 27, recent images of Mars taken by the camera onboard NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft will be available to the public on the Internet. A new, “uncalibrated” image taken by the visible light camera will be posted at 7 a.m. (Pacific) daily, Monday through Friday.
March 20th, 2002
Students Begin Exploring Mars with NASA’s Mars Odyssey Spacecraft
A group of small, unnamed craters in the martian southern hemisphere is the first site captured by a group of middle school students who are operating the camera system onboard NASA