Preliminary data from the Curiosity Mars Science Laboratory, presented at the European Planetary Science Conference on 28 September, indicate that the Gale Crater landing site might be drier than expected.

The Curiosity rover is designed to carry out research into whether Mars was ever able to support life, and a key element of this search is the hunt for water. Although Mars has many features on its surface that suggest a distant past in which the planet had abundant liquid water in the form of rivers and lakes, the only water known to be abundant on Mars today is frozen, embedded in the soil, and in large ice caps at both poles.

The Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) instrument on board Curiosity is designed to detect the location and abundance of water thanks to the way hydrogen (one of water’s components) reflects neutrons. When neutrons hit heavy particles, they bounce off with little loss in energy, but when they hit hydrogen atoms (which are much lighter and have approximately the same mass as neutrons), they lose half of their energy.

The DAN instrument works by firing a pulse of neutrons at the ground beneath the rover and detecting the way it is reflected. The intensity of the reflection depends on the proportion of water in the ground, while the time the pulse takes to reach the detector is a function of the depth at which the water is located.

“The prediction based on previous measurements using the Mars Odyssey orbiter was that the soil in Gale Crater would be around 6% water. But the preliminary results from Curiosity show only a fraction of this,” said Maxim Mokrousov (Russian Space Research Institute), the lead designer of the instrument.

One possible explanation of the discrepancy lies in the variability of water content across the surface of Mars. There are large-scale variations, with polar regions in particular having high abundances of water, but also substantial local differences even within individual regions on Mars.

The Mars Odyssey spacecraft is only able to measure water abundance for an area around 300 by 300 kilometers — it cannot make high resolution maps. It may therefore be that Odyssey’s figure for Gale Crater is an accurate (but somewhat misleading) average of significantly varying hydrogen abundances in different parts the crater.

Indeed, over the small distance that the rover has already covered, DAN has observed variations in the detector counting rates that may indicate different levels of hydrogen in the ground, hinting that this is likely to be the case.

Curiosity’s ability to probe the water content in the Martian soil in specific locations, rather than averages of broad regions, allows for a far more precise and detailed understanding of the distribution of water ice on Mars.

Press Contacts:
Anita Heward
EPSC 2012 Press Officer
+44 7756 034243
anita.heward@europlanet-eu.org

Oliver Usher
EPSC 2012 Press Officer
+44 7754 130109
o.j.usher@gmail.com

EPSC Press office (24-28 September only)
+34 91 722 3020 (English enquiries)
+34 91 722 3021 (Spanish enquiries)
Fax: +34 91 722 3022

Science Contact:
Maxim Mokrousov
Russian Space Research Institute, Moscow
mokromax@iki.rssi.ru

Images

http://www.europlanet-eu.org/outreach/images/stories/epsc2012/dan_mars_ice.png A: Detecting water on Mars using the DAN instrument The DAN instrument works by firing a pulse of neutrons at the ground beneath the Curiosity rover. If they hit hydrogen (as a component of water ice) the neutrons’ kinetic energy is significantly reduced, while other materials in the ground affect the neutrons far less. Credit: Russian Federal Space Agency/NASA/JPL-Caltech

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia16082.html B: The location of the DAN Instrument on the Curiosity rover This image of NASA’s Curiosity rover shows the location of the two components of the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons instrument. The neutron generator is mounted on the right hip (visible in this view), and the detectors are on the opposite hip. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

European Planetary Science Congress 2012

The European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) is the major European meeting on planetary science and attracts scientists from Europe and around the World. The 2012 program includes more than 50 sessions and workshops. The EPSC has a distinctively interactive style, with a mix of talks, workshops and posters, intended to provide a stimulating environment for discussion. This year’s meeting will take place at the IFEMA-Feria de Madrid, Spain, from Sunday 23 September to Friday 28 September 2012. EPSC 2012 is organized by Europlanet, a Research Infrastructure funded under the European Commission’s Framework 7 Program, in association with the European Geosciences Union, with the support of the Centro de Astrobiologia of Spain’s Instituto Nacional de Tecnica Aeroespacial (CAB-INTA). Details of the Congress and a full schedule of EPSC 2012 scientific sessions and events can be found at the official website: http://www.epsc2012.eu/

Europlanet

The Europlanet Research Infrastructure is a major (O6 million) program co-funded by the European Union under the Seventh Framework Program of the European Commission. The Europlanet Research Infrastructure brings together the European planetary science community through a range of Networking Activities, aimed at fostering a culture of cooperation in the field of planetary sciences, Transnational Access Activities, providing European researchers with access to a range of laboratory and field site facilities tailored to the needs of planetary research, as well as on-line access to the available planetary science data, information and software tools, through the Integrated and Distributed Information Service. These programs are underpinned by Joint Research Activities, which are developing and improving the facilities, models, software tools and services offered by Europlanet.

Europlanet Project website: http://www.europlanet-ri.eu

Europlanet Outreach website: http://www.europlanet-eu.org/outreach

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