Ten Years of Mars Express

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Mars mineral globe

This unique atlas comprises a series of maps showing the distribution and abundance of minerals formed in water, by volcanic activity, and by weathering to create the dust that makes Mars red.

Together the maps provide a global context for the dominant geological processes that have defined the planet’s history.

The maps were built from ten years of data collected by the OMEGA visible and infrared mineralogical mapping spectrometer on Mars Express.

The animation cycles through maps showing: individual sites where a range of minerals that can only be formed in the presence of water were detected; maps of olivine and pyroxene, minerals that tell the story of volcanism and the evolution of the planet’s interior; and ferric oxide and dust. Ferric oxide is a mineral phase of iron, and is present everywhere on the planet: within the bulk crust, lava outflows and the dust oxidised by chemical reactions with the martian atmosphere, causing the surface to ‘rust’ slowly over billions of years, giving Mars its distinctive red hue.

The map showing hydrated minerals includes detections made by both ESA’s Mars Express and by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Credit: Hydrated mineral map: ESA/CNES/CNRS/IAS/Université Paris-Sud, Orsay; NASA/JPL/JHUAPL; Olivine, pyroxone, ferric dust & dust maps: ESA/CNES/CNRS/IAS/Université Paris-Sud, Orsay Orsay; Video production: ESA.

Source: ESA - Space in Videos

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Mars Express 10 years

This story explains what this mission achieved in general terms and what we know now about Mars.

Credit: ESA

Source: ESA - Space in Videos

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Mars Express ten year highlights

The journey of Mars Express, from drawing board through launch, to its key science highlights during ten years of operations. With its suite of seven instruments, Mars Express has studied the subsurface of the Red Planet to the upper atmosphere and beyond to the two tiny moons Phobos and Deimos, providing an in depth analysis of the planet’s history and returning stunning 3D images.

Credit: ESA

Source: ESA - Space in Videos