The small crater Airy-0 was selected from Mariner 9 images to be the reference for the Mars prime meridian. Initial analyses in the year 2000 tied Viking Orbiter and Mars Orbiter Camera images of Airy-0 to the evolving Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter global digital terrain model to update the location of Airy-0. Based upon this tie and radiometric tracking of landers/rovers from Earth, new express...

The use of airplanes for Mars exploration is a new and attractive approach because it provides high resolution power and large spatial coverage. However, it is also a challenging approach in engineering viewpoint. Mars airplanes are required to fly in lower Reynolds number and higher subsonic Mach number conditions due to thinner atmosphere and smaller speed of sound on the Mars, compared to ty...

The application of “Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines”(MARS) to the problem of modeling duration of a set of segments used in a text-to-speech system for German is presented. MARS is a technique to estimate general functions of high-dimensional arguments given sparse data. It automatically selects the parameters and the structure of the model based on data available. The result is a mode...

Early Mars (>3 Ga) underwent aqueous alteration as evidenced by fluvial/lacustrine morphologies and the recent discovery of widespread hydrous clays. Despite compelling evidence for diverse and localized aqueous environments, the possibility for sustained liquid water globally on the martian surface and over geological timescales is still highly debated. Instead, a durably cold and dry Mars sce...

Introduction: Measurements of the martian atmosphere have experienced rapid growth during the past decade. As on Earth, remote sensing from orbit offers the advantage of nearly continuous, global coverage and a host of instruments have been employed for this purpose, including cameras [the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) and the Mars Color Imager (MARCI)] and infrared sounders [the Thermal Emission S...

It is often stated that Mars and Earth had similar environmental conditions early in their history and that life might therefore have originated on Mars as well as on Earth. However, the atmospheric conditions required to produce and sustain a warm, wet climate on early Mars remain uncertain. State-of-the-art greenhouse models predict global mean surface temperatures early in Mars' history that...

Place-naming processes for the features on other planetary bodies are controlled by the International Astronomical Union's (IAU) Working Group on Planetary Nomenclature. This article examines the development of the nomenclature of the surroundings of the Mars Society's Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), located in Utah, USA, a simulation facility for future Mars stations. The development of t...

The Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft, containing the Curiosity rover, was launched to Mars on 26 November 2011, and for most of the 253-day, 560-million-kilometer cruise to Mars, the Radiation Assessment Detector made detailed measurements of the energetic particle radiation environment inside the spacecraft. These data provide insights into the radiation hazards that would be associated with...

Observations of seasonal variations of neutron flux from the high-energy neutron detector (HEND) on Mars Odyssey combined with direct measurements of the thickness of condensed carbon dioxide by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) on Mars Global Surveyor show a latitudinal dependence of northern winter deposition of carbon dioxide. The observations are also consistent with a shallow substra...

Whole disk brightness ratios for Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars are reported at 5.7, 9.5, 16.4, and 22.5 cm. Using models for the brightness temperature of Mars, the whole disk brightness temperatures for Jupiter and Saturn are also given for the four frequencies. Subject headings: balloons — cosmic microwave background — infrared: solar system — planets and satellites: individual (Jupiter, Mars, Sa...