Citizen scientists are helping to map Mars’s strange ridge features

By Georgina Torbet April 10, 2022

Members of the public are helping to map unusual ridge features in the Jezero crater on Mars, near the area where the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter are currently exploring. Thousands of citizen scientists have helped to map out ridge networks that can give clues to how water flowed on Mars billions of years ago, as part of a recently published paper.

Researchers from Arizona State University and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory invited the public to help classify data from a number of orbiting Mars instruments, including the NASA Mars Odyssey orbiter’s THEMIS camera and the Mars Reconnaissance orbiter’s CTX and HiRISE instruments. Through the Zooniverse platform, citizen scientists identified a total of 953 polygonal ridge networks in an area covering around 20% of Mars’s surface.

Map of polygonal ridge networks (black dots) identified in mapping area (dashed black outline), covering approximately a fifth of Mars’ total surface area. — Map of polygonal ridge networks (black dots) identified in mapping area (dashed black outline), covering approximately a fifth of Mars’ total surface area. The Mars Perseverance rover landing site is shown in purple. Background: Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter Elevation Map. NASA/JPL/GSFC

“Citizen scientists played an integral role in this research because these features are essentially patterns at the surface, so almost anyone with a computer and internet can help identify these patterns using images of Mars,” one of the authors, Aditya Khuller, said in a statement.

The ridge networks were most often identified in extremely old terrain that was up to 4 billion years old, which is around the time that Mars is thought to have had liquid water flowing on its surface. Similar ridges have been found to have clays in previous research, which is important as clays tend to form in the presence of water. Though many of the ridges are now covered in dust, which makes them hard to analyze, this suggests that they could have formed due to water flowing on or near the surface.

Unusual ridge networks on Mars may provide clues about the history of the Red Planet. — Unusual ridge networks on Mars may provide clues about the history of the Red Planet. NASA/JPL/MSSS/Caltech Murray Lab/Esri

The researchers want to continue inviting the public to help with the mapping work. “We hope to eventually map the entire planet with the help of citizen scientists,” Khuller said. “If we are lucky, the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover might be able to confirm these findings, but the nearest set of ridges is a few kilometers away, so they might only be visited on a potential extended mission.”

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Georgina Torbet

Space Writer

Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…

Space

See the passing of a day on Mars with the Curiosity rover

Curiosity rover

While many of us are on vacation this week between Christmas and New Year, the Curiosity rover on Mars is getting back to work after taking time off last month. In November, NASA's Mars missions paused for two weeks during an event called the Mars solar conjunction, when the sun is directly between Earth and Mars.

That means that any communications signals passing between the two planets would have to pass close to the harsh solar environment, where they would likely be degraded. To avoid any risk of garbled communications sending dangerous signals to the rovers, NASA stopped sending commands to both its Curiosity and Perseverance rovers until the solar conjunction passed.

Space

Mars Odyssey spacecraft pulls a sideways maneuver to capture the planet’s horizon

NASA Orbiter Snaps Stunning Views of Mars Horizon

A new image from a NASA orbiter shows an unusual view of Mars that captures the planet's horizon complete with clouds. It is similar to the kinds of views of Earth that astronauts get from the International Space Station, showing what Mars would look like if seen from a similar vantage point.

The image was taken by NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft, which has been orbiting the planet since 2001. In its over 20 years of operations, the orbiter made key discoveries, including some of the first detections of subsurface ice on the planet. It has also created a global map of the planet's surface using its Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) instrument.

Space

The Curiosity rover reaches a milestone on Mars

Curiosity Rover

NASA's Curiosity rover, which is currently exploring Mars' Gale Crater, recently marked an impressive milestone: 4,000 days on Mars. The rover landed more than a decade ago on August 5, 2012, and since then it has continued to explore the area, collect rock samples, and make its way up the epic slopes of Mount Sharp.

The 4,000 days are measured in mission time, which is calculated in martian days or sols. Due to the differing rates of rotation of Earth and Mars, a day on Mars is slightly longer than a day on Earth, by about 40 minutes. And also, due to the difference distances between Earth and Mars and the sun, a martian year is longer too - at 668 sols, equivalent to 687 Earth days. Those working on Mars rover missions, especially the rover drivers, have to operate on Mars time, so their schedules are out of sync with typical Earth working hours and they generally work on 90-sol shifts to allow them time to readjust to Earth schedules.