CRISM data was superimposed onto an image of Mars’ Alga Crater captured by another MRO instrument, HiRISE. Each color represents a different material: blue for pyroxene, red for olivine, and green for impact glass, which forms in the heat of a violent impact that excavates a crater.
CRISM data was superimposed onto an image of Mars' Alga Crater captured by another MRO instrument, HiRISE. Each color represents a different material: blue for pyroxene, red for olivine, and green for impact glass, which forms in the heat of a violent impact that excavates a crater. One of six instruments aboard the agency's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, CRISM produced global maps of minerals on the Red Planet's surface. NASA switched off one of its oldest instruments studying Mars on April 3, a step that's been planned since last year. Riding aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, CRISM , or the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars, revealed minerals such as clays, hematite (otherwise known as iron oxide), and sulfates across the Red Planet's surface for 17 years. Led by Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, CRISM produced high-resolution mineral maps crucial in helping scientists understand how lakes, streams, and groundwater shaped the planet billions of years ago. The instrument's two detectors saw in visible and infrared light, spotting the chemical fingerprints, or spectra, of minerals that form in the presence of water.
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