Spaceflight Now Home



Spaceflight Now +



Premium video content for our Spaceflight Now Plus subscribers.

Discovery in the VAB
Shuttle Discovery enters into the Vehicle Assembly Building after a 10-hour journey from launch pad 39B. (4min 29sec file)
 Play video

Memorial Day message
The International Space Station's Expedition 11 crew pays tribute to our fallen heroes for Memorial Day. (1min 00sec QuickTime file)
 Play video

Apollo-era transporter
In the predawn hours, the Apollo-era crawler-transporter is driven beneath shuttle Discovery's mobile launch platform at pad 39B in preparation for the rollback to the Vehicle Assembly Building. (2min 37sec QuickTime file)
 Play video

Unplugging the shuttle
Workers disconnect a vast number of umbilicals running between launch pad 39B and Discovery's mobile launch platform for the rollback. The cabling route electrical power, data and communications to the shuttle. (2min 32sec file)
 Play video

Shuttle rollback
The crawler-transporter begins rolling space shuttle Discovery off launch pad 39B at 6:44 a.m. EDT May 26 for the 4.2-mile trip back to the Vehicle Assembly Building. (7min 28sec file)
 Play video

Voyager adventures
This animation shows the Voyager spacecraft heading into the solar system's final frontier and the edge of interstellar space. (1min 24sec file)
 Play video

Mike Griffin at KSC
NASA Administrator Mike Griffin and Kennedy Space Center Director Jim Kennedy chat with reporters at the Cape on a wide range of topics. The press event was held during Griffin's tour of the spaceport. (27min 48sec file)
 Play video

Delta rocket blasts off
The NOAA-N weather satellite is launched aboard a Boeing Delta 2 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

 Play video:
   Liftoff | Extended clip
   Umbilicals | IR tracker

NOAA pre-launch
Officials from NASA, NOAA, the Air Force and Boeing hold the pre-launch news conference at Vandenberg Air Force Base to preview the mission of a Delta 2 rocket and the NOAA-N weather satellite. (29min 54sec file)

 Play video:
   Dial-up | Broadband

Countdown culmination
Watch shuttle Discovery's countdown dress rehearsal that ends with a simulated main engine shutdown and post-abort safing practice. (13min 19sec file)
 Play video

Going to the pad
The five-man, two-woman astronaut crew departs the Operations and Checkout Building to board the AstroVan for the ride to launch pad 39B during the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test countdown dress rehearsal. (3min 07sec file)
 Play video

Suiting up
After breakfast, the astronauts don their launch and entry partial pressure suits before heading to the pad. (3min 14sec file)
 Play video

Become a subscriber
More video



Evidence for extensive, olivine-rich bedrock on Mars
UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII NEWS RELEASE
Posted: June 1, 2005

By using new, high spatial resolution infrared data from NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft, Victoria Hamilton from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and Philip Christensen from Arizona State University have concluded that a region on the surface of Mars known to contain olivine-rich rocks is actually 4 times larger than previously estimated.


Mineralogy surrounding the Nili Fossae, Mars, as seen in a mosaic of infrared images from Mars Odyssey Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS). Within this largely basaltic region, olivine-rich exposures stand out as magenta to purple-blue in color. Credit: NASA/JPL/ASU
 
The bedrock in question is adjacent to Syrtis Major, one of Mars' largest volcanoes. This region is of interest to scientists because it lies in a relatively old region on Mars, and yet contains significant amounts of olivine, a mineral that can weather rapidly in the presence of water.

These results are reported in the June 2005 cover story of the journal Geology.

Based on its infrared spectral signatures, this region was previously identified by the NASA Mars Global Surveyor Thermal Emission Spectrometer (MGS TES) (launched in 1996) as having an enrichment in the mineral olivine (the dominant mineral component of several Martian meteorites) relative to typical Martian basalts. Infrared spectra of rocks are like fingerprints, allowing scientists to determine their mineral make-up. Using higher spatial resolution data available from the Mars Odyssey spacecraft's Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS)(launched in 2001), the researchers were able to expand the boundaries of the high-olivine region by comparing the infrared spectra and temperature measurements acquired by THEMIS to geological features in visible wavelength digital images taken by THEMIS and the MGS Mars Orbiter Camera.

"By having the different types of high resolution visible, spectral, and temperature information available, we were able to see both geochemical and geological features on Mars that showed us that this high-olivine region is much larger than we thought previously," said Hamilton, an assistant professor in the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology. "We now have a better view of the detailed geology of this ancient region."

The region is northeast of the Syrtis Major volcanic shield, and was previously shown to have an area of ~ 30,000 km 2. In this new study, the deposits in question are now shown to be 113,000 km 2, almost 4 times larger than previously thought. As a comparison, the Big Island of Hawai'i, with its five volcanoes, has a surface area of ~10,500 km 2 - almost 11x smaller than the deposits on Mars. These olivine-rich basalts appear to be present in the form of in-place, layered rock units that are being exposed by tectonic uplift and the erosion of younger rocks. One of the findings of the study is that at least some of these rocks were erupted onto the surface of Mars, where they might have been exposed to more water and weathering than if they had been intruded into the subsurface, as previously proposed.

"How much liquid water was present on the surface of Mars in the past, and for how long, are big questions in planetary science right now," Hamilton says. "Under many conditions, olivine turns into other minerals very rapidly in the presence of water, so the preservation of all this olivine in a very old region of Mars is intriguing. One hypothesis is that this area of Mars has not seen much water. Now that we know the detailed distribution of these olivine-rich rocks, we can search more of the spectral data for minerals that might have formed if the olivine was exposed to water at some point in its past."

This research is covered in the June issue of the GEOLOGY, published by the Geological Society of America, and is featured on the magazine's cover.

This research was funded through grants from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

The School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) was established by the Board of Regents of the University of Hawaii in 1988. SOEST brings together in a single focused ocean, earth sciences and technology group, some of the nation's highest quality academic departments, research institutes, federal cooperative programs, and support facilities to meet challenges in the ocean and earth sciences, including the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP). Scientists at SOEST are supported by both state and federal funds as they endeavor to understand the subtle and complex interrelations of the seas, the atmosphere, and the earth.