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20-Mar-2008
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NASA Mission Finds New Clues to Guide Search for Life on Mars
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Bright Exposures of Chloride Salt on Southern Mars
This image provides higher-resolution views of a site where another observation (PIA10247) indicates the presence of chloride salt deposits. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took this image on March 30, 2007. The colors resemble natural appearance, but are not true color. The chloride mineral deposit looks bright in tone, like salt pans on Earth. The deposit seems to be emerging as overlying material erodes away.
Evidence that this site and about 200 other sites in the southern highlands of Mars bear deposits of chloride salts comes from observations by the Thermal Emission Imaging System on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter. The salt deposits typically lie within topographic depressions, as exemplified in this image. They point to places where water was once abundant, then evaporated, leaving the minerals behind.
Inset boxes show two areas in greater detail, revealing cracks that formed as the salt deposit dried. Scale bars are 1 kilometer (six-tenths of a mile) and 100 meters (110 yards).
The site lies at about 221 degrees east longitude and 38.8 degrees south latitude, within the rugged Terra Sirenum region of Mars. This view, taken during southern-hemisphere spring on Mars, is part of a full HiRISE image at posted at http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_003160_1410 .
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Arizona State University/University of Hawaii
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Chloride Salt Deposit in Southern Highlands of Mars
Bright blue marks a deposit of chloride (salt) minerals in the southern highlands of Mars in this false-color image, which highlights mineral composition differences. The Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter made this observation. Researchers using THEMIS reported in March 2008 that they have found about 200 such deposits of chloride salts. Observations by THEMIS and other instruments orbiting Mars indicate that these deposits typically lie within topographic depressions. The salt deposits suggest that Mars was much wetter long ago. They point to places where water was once abundant, then evaporated, leaving the minerals behind.
This site lies at about 221 degrees east longitude and 38.8 degrees south latitude, within the rugged Terra Sirenum region of Mars. The view is a portion of an image taken by THEMIS on Dec. 11, 2003. The full image is at http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/I08831002?tab=1 .
The scale bar is about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). The black rectangle indicates the outline of a higher resolution view, available as PIA10248.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Arizona State University/University of Hawaii
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