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New Mars gravity map reveals new info on red planet
Researchers have developed a new map of Mars\' gravity with three NASA spacecraft that is the most detailed to date, providing a revealing glimpse into the hidden interior of the Red Planet. The new gravity map will be helpful for future Mars exploration, because better knowledge of the planet\'s gravity anomalies helps mission controllers insert spacecraft more precisely into orbit about Mars.
New York: Researchers have developed a new map of Mars' gravity with three NASA spacecraft that is the most detailed to date, providing a revealing glimpse into the hidden interior of the Red Planet. The new gravity map will be helpful for future Mars exploration, because better knowledge of the planet's gravity anomalies helps mission controllers insert spacecraft more precisely into orbit about Mars.
The improved resolution of the new gravity map suggests a new explanation for how some features formed across the boundary that divides the relatively smooth northern lowlands from heavily cratered southern highlands. Finally, by observing how Mars' gravity changed over 11 years - the period of an entire cycle of solar activity - the team inferred the massive amount of carbon dioxide that freezes out of the atmosphere onto a Martian polar ice cap when it experiences winter.
They also observed how that mass moves between the south pole and the north pole with the change of season in each hemisphere. The map was derived using data collected by NASA's Deep Space Network from three NASA spacecraft in orbit around Mars: Mars Global Surveyor (MGS), Mars Odyssey (ODY), and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Like all planets, Mars is lumpy, which causes the gravitational pull felt by spacecraft in orbit around it to change.
