WHEN NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter slipped into orbit around the Red Planet last week, it joined three other illustrious probes circling Mars and two intrepid rovers on the ground that have all been studying the planet in unprecedented detail over the past two years.
While the MRO's increased sensitivity promises a deluge of information over the next few years, its hard-working brethren have already transformed our understanding of the planet's geological past, not least by adding a whole new epoch to Martian prehistory. This grand reappraisal of Mars' past, thanks to the joint efforts of NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey, its rovers Spirit and Opportunity, and ESA's Mars Express, was the subject of a symposium at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas last week.
The basic three-part division of Martian geological history into the Noachian, Hesperian and Amazonian periods was based on images from the Mariner ...
10:45 10 October 2008
19:00 09 October 2008Subscribe today at only USD $5.95 for your first 4 issues and get New Scientist, the world's leading science & technology news magazine delivered direct to your door every week
As a magazine subscriber you will benefit from instant access to:
