ASU in Space
ASU's reach goes far beyond the community, nation or even the world. Research in the School of Earth and Space Exploration extends to our neighboring Moon and beyond. Here are examples of some of the projects ASU has worked on.
NASA Mars Odyssey
A false-color THEMIS mosaic focuses on one junction where canyons meet in the Noctis Labyrinthus region on Mars to form a depression 13,000 feet (4,000 meters) deep. Dust (blue tints) lies on the upper surfaces, while rockier material (warmer colors) shows below. ASU’s Philip Christensen is the principal investigator for the THEMIS instrument.
NASA Mars Odyssey
The TES and THEMIS instruments on Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey, while orbiting the Red Planet in 2000 and 2002, showed that Meridiani Planum, a plain on Mars, contains areas rich in hematite, an iron-oxide mineral associated with water. Not long after, the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity confirmed on the ground the orbital discovery. The Meridiani area has a long sedimentary history; this false-color image shows rockier areas in redder hues, and dustier ones in cool tones. ASU’s Philip Christensen is the principal investigator for both the TES and THEMIS instruments.
NASA Mars Odyssey
A sea of dark dunes, sculpted by the wind into long lines, surrounds the northern polar cap of Mars covering an area as extensive as all Texas. The false-color THEMIS image records areas with cooler temperatures in bluer tints, while warmer features are depicted in yellows and oranges — thus the dark, Sun-warmed dunes glow with a golden color. ASU’s Philip Christensen is the principal investigator for the THEMIS instrument.
NASA Mars Exploration Rovers
The Mars Exploration Rover Spirit acquired this mosaic near the feature known as Home Plate in the Columbia Hills. The area of disturbed soil was made by Spirit’s stuck right front wheel. In the trench is a white patch of nearly pure silica, identified as such by the Mini-TES instrument, designed at ASU. The silica could have come from either a hot-spring environment or a fumarole, in which acidic, volcanic steam rises through cracks. Either way, its formation involved water; on Earth, both of these types of settings teem with microbial life. ASU’s Jim Bell is the principal investigator for the rovers’ Panoramic Camera, which took the image mosaic, and Philip Christensen is the principal investigator for the Mini-TES instrument.
NASA Mars Exploration Rovers
This view of Victoria Crater on Mars looks north toward a promontory called Cape Verde (on which sits a computer-simulated Opportunity rover sized to scale). The cliff of layered rocks is about 20 feet (6 meters) tall. This is an approximately true color rendering of images taken by the Panoramic camera (Pancam). ASU’s Jim Bell is the principal investigator for the Pancam.
NASA Mars Exploration Rovers
The Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity arrived in August 2011 at the rim of Endeavour Crater, which is about 14 miles (22 kilometers) wide. After arrival, Opportunity used its Panoramic camera (Pancam) to record the images combined into this mosaic view. The view scene shows the Spirit Point area of the rim, including a small crater, Odyssey, on the rim and the vast interior of Endeavour beyond. ASU’s Jim Bell is the principal investigator for the Pancam.
ESA (European Space Agency) Mars Express Orbiter
Ceraunius Tholus and Uranius Tholus are two volcanoes in the Tharsis region of Mars. Ceraunius Tholus is 81 miles (130 kilometers) across and rises 18,000 feet (5,500 meters) above its surroundings. Its neighbor, Uranius Tholus is a smaller volcano, with a diameter of 39 miles (62 kilometers) and a height of about 14,000 feet (4,500 meters). The High Resolution Stereo Camera on ESA’s Mars Express took this image and the perspective view has been calculated from the digital terrain model derived from the stereo channels. ASU’s Ronald Greeley is on the science team for the High Resolution Stereo Camera.
ESA (European Space Agency) Mars Express Orbiter
This unnamed elongated depression is located just to the south of the much larger Huygens Crater on Mars. It is about 49 miles (78 kilometers) long; is 16 miles (25 kilometers) at widest; and some 6,800 feet (2,000 meters) deep. The image was created using a digital terrain model from the High Resolution Stereo Camera on ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft. ASU’s Ronald Greeley is on the science team for the High Resolution Stereo Camera.
NASA Messenger Mission
The MESSENGER spacecraft is the first ever to orbit the planet Mercury. The spacecraft’s seven scientific instruments and radio science investigation are unraveling the history and evolution of the Solar System’s innermost planet. The MESSENGER spacecraft is a squat box with a semi-cylindrical thermal shade for protection from the Sun and two solar panel wings extending radially about 20 feet (6 meters) from tip to tip. The total mass of the spacecraft is 2,405 pounds (1,093 kilograms); 1,337 pounds (607.8 kilograms) of this is propellant and helium. ASU’s Mark Robinson is a co-investigator on the MESSENGER geology science team.
NASA Messenger Mission
This image shows the rayed crater Kuiper on Mercury; as seen by MESSENGER’s wide-angle camera. The smooth regions on Kuiper’s floor and to its south consist of rock that was melted by the impact that created the crater. Kuiper is 39 miles (62 kilometers) in diameter and is an important stratigraphic marker in Mercury’s geologic history. ASU’s Mark Robinson is a co-investigator on the MESSENGER geology science team.
NASA Messenger Mission
This image portrays a true-color view of Mercury (left) and a composite of visual and infrared observations (right) to highlight the variations of mineral distributions on the planet’s surface as seen by NASA’s Messenger spacecraft on Oct. 6, 2008. ASU’s Mark Robinson is a co-investigator on the MESSENGER geology science team.
NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
This image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows sedimentary-rock layering in which a series of layers are all approximately the same thickness. Analysis using stereo pairs of HiRISE images confirmed the individual layers average about 33 feet (10 meters) thick. The view covers an area about 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) wide, within an unnamed crater in the Arabia Terra region on Mars. ASU’s Jim Bell is on the HiRISE science team.
NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
Mars gets cold enough to freeze carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere during the winter, but this ice is unstable when the warmer summer arrives and forces it to sublimate (transform directly back into a gas). Near the South Pole, however, temperatures stay cold enough for some of this seasonal CO2 ice to survive all year round and even accumulate from year to year. This image shows a portion of this permanent carbon dioxide ice cap. This slab of ice is about 10 feet (3 meters) thick and is penetrated by the flat-floored pits shown here. The quasi-circular pits in the center of the scene are about 200 feet (60 meters) across. The distinct color of the pit walls may be due to dust mixed into the ice. For most of the year these walls are covered with bright frost, but they defrost and show their true colors at the end of the summer. ASU’s Jim Bell is on the HiRISE science team.
NASA Dawn Mission
The asteroid Vesta is the first target of the Dawn spacecraft, which was launched in September 2007 and reached this rocky body in 2011. Among other instruments Dawn carries a visible and infrared spectrometer and a gamma ray/neutron spectrometer. With the latter it will provide a detailed picture of the main and trace element abundances to help scientists learn its composition and history. This NASA image shows the liftoff of the Delta II rocket carrying the Dawn space probe on the morning of September 27, 2007. ASU’s David Williams is a participating scientist on the Dawn mission.
NASA Dawn Mission
This image obtained by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft shows the south pole of the giant asteroid Vesta. Scientists are discussing whether the circular structure that covers most of this image originated by a collision with another asteroid, or by internal processes early in the asteroid’s history. ASU faculty research associate David Williams, a participating scientist on the DAWN mission, is working to record each geological formation and to create maps that will help scientists understand the geological history of the asteroid. This will provide clues to the nature and diversity of planetary volcanism in the solar system, particularly how volcanism might operate on a small body.
NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
The instrument payload of NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter consists of seven scientific instruments from institutions in the U.S. and around the globe that will return lunar imagery, topography, temperatures, and more. ASU’s Mark Robinson is principal investigator of one of the instruments on board, the imaging system known as LROC, short for Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera.
NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
The paths left by astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell on both Apollo 14 Moon walks are visible in this image from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. (At the end of the second Moon walk, Shepard famously hit two golf balls.) The descent stage of the lunar module Antares, measuring about 5 meters across, is also visible. Apollo 14 landed near Fra Mauro crater in February 1971. On the first Moon walk, the astronauts set up the lunar monitoring equipment known as the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP) to the west of the landing site and collected about 92 pounds (just over 42 kilograms) of lunar samples. Luckily for them, they had a rickshaw-style cart called the modular equipment transporter, or MET, which they could use to carry equipment and samples.
NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
Arizona State University researchers released this stunning image of the Moon’s prominent impact crater Tycho, taken with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) on June 10, 2011. This dramatic sunrise view of Tycho crater captured by ASU’s Mark Robinson and his LROC team with the narrow angle camera could be considered one of the most beautiful images of the Moon taken to date.
NASA Mars Science Laboratory
The landing site for the Mars Science Laboratory is Gale crater, 96 miles (154 kilometers) across. Gale’s attraction lies in a gigantic stack of ancient sediments that may contain evidence of Mars’ habitability in earlier eras. MSL will be targeted to land within the ellipse, which measures 12-by-16 miles (20-by-25 kilometers). ASU professors and researchers, as well as alums, are involved in the mission. Professor Meenakshi Wadhwa is a co-investigator with the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument, essentially an analytical chemistry system. Amy McAdam, an ASU alumna, is also working on SAM. Professor Jack Farmer is a science team member for a different instrument, CheMin, designed to examine the chemical and mineralogical properties of rocks and soils. Associate Professor Alberto Behar is an investigation scientist for the Russian Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons instrument.
NASA Mars Science Laboratory
When NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory arrives on the planet in August 2012, its instruments will look for rocks and deposits that may have once been habitable for Mars life, if there ever was any. Several ASU professors and researchers are co-investigators or on the science teams for instruments carried by MSL.
NASA OSIRIS REx
A mineral scouting instrument, designed by ASU’s Philip Christensen and to be built on the Tempe campus, will be aboard NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, scheduled for launch in 2016. Part of NASA’s New Frontiers program, OSIRIS-REx (a University of Arizona-led mission) will fly to asteroid 1999 RQ36 and collect rock and soil samples rich in organic materials from the early system and return them to Earth.
NASA OSIRIS REx
ASU’s mineral scouting instrument, the OSIRIS-REx Thermal Emission Spectrometer (OTES), surveys asteroid 1999 RQ36 in preparation for choosing a site on the asteroid to sample. ASU’s Philip Christensen is the instrument’s designer and principal investigator.