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Mars Research at the Jackson School of Geosciences Spans Across the Red Planet

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Mars Research at the Jackson School of Geosciences Spans Across the Red Planet RESEARCH ON THE RED PLANET Mars research at the Jackson School of Geosciences spans across the Red Planet. The findings are helping us learn more about our planetary neighbor, including the best spots to potentially look for signs of ancient extraterrestrial life, and where future Mars colonists could go to Paleoclimate on Ice River Research Dunes on Mars Chasma Boreale Ice deposits on Mars record Ancient eroded river and Beyond Dunes of ice and sand are at find water. This basic research on Mars could become vital information the planet’s climate history. deposits on Mars called In 2016, Mackenzie Day the bottom of Mars’ Chasma Ph.D. students Stefano “sinuous ridges” are leftovers (Ph.D. ’17) found that wind Boreale, a deep indention for future space missions. Nerozzi and Dan Lalich from a time when Mars was likely shaped Mount Sharp, at the planet’s north pole. are researching the climate a wet world billions of years a mile-high mountain Sarah Brothers (Ph.D. ’16) history of Mars by analyzing ago. By comparing a locale inside Gale Crater and the studied the processes that ice deposits layer by layer, a on Mars with similar ridges destination site for the shape these modern dunes feat made possible with ice- on Earth, Ph.D. student NASA rover Curiosity. For to understand how ancient penetrating radar on NASA’s Ben Cardenas has found her thesis, she compared dunes, now covered by ice, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. they likely formed along an dune patterns on Earth, were formed millions of Holt at the Helm of SHARAD ancient coastline and retain Mars and Saturn’s moon years ago. Brothers is now Research Professor Jack Holt is the the curvature of the Martian Titan and found that dune a postdoctoral research co-principal investigator for SHARAD rivers that formed them. fields form similar patterns associate at Texas A&M — a radar instrument on NASA’s across planetary bodies. University. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Holt’s radar expertise, honed on ice sheets NOTE: RESEARCH SITES LISTED ABOVE ARE NOT VISIBLE FROM VANTAGE OF MARS and exotic terrain on Earth, prepared ON LEFT. PHOTOS: NASA. him for managing an instrument than can see about half a mile below Mars’ surface. Much of the Mars research at UT — and around the world — depends on SHARAD data. Scientists Prefer Jezero At a meeting in February 2017, scientists selected Jezero Crater as The “Great Lake” their top pick to send a new NASA of Utopia Planitia Mars rover set to launch in 2020. Cassie Stuurman (M.S. ’17) discovered Postdoctoral Fellow Timothy Gouge a buried ice deposit in Mars’ Utopia proposed the site because his research Planitia region that holds as much water on the crater indicates it was once a as Lake Superior and creates distinctive wet, mineral-rich lake. Jezero is now “ice-cream scoop” surface terrain. among the top-three landing sites under NASA’s consideration. NASA Scout UTIG Research Associate Cyril Grima helped NASA select the Elysium Planitia region of Mars as the landing spot for The Ice Cauldron of Hellas Basin its InSight lander, a probe scheduled to A volcano beneath an ice sheet — a land in 2018. Grima used a statistical structure called an “ice cauldron” — is technique he developed to analyze the likely responsible for creating a funnel- surface roughness of the site. shaped depression in Mars’ Hellas Basin. UTIG Research Affiliate Joe Levy found the structure after noticing a bull’s-eye pattern in the ice that resembled marks made by ice cauldrons on Earth. 70 | Jackson School of Geosciences 2017 Newsletter | 71.
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