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Dr. Janice Bishop
“Taking Apart the Rocks of Mars”
Evaluation of the mineralogy of the surface of Mars is a fundamental goal of Mars exploration and is a requirement for understanding geological processes active on the surface. Remote sensing techniques, principally visible/near-IR and mid-IR spectroscopy, are the primary tools used to achieve this goal, supplemented by in-situ analyses including Mössbauer spectroscopy. This project involves identifying and investigating the diagnostic properties of a suite of mineral separates from actual Martian meteorites using a wide range of spectroscopic techniques in a systematic and integrated manner. This set of well-constrained diagnostic properties of Mars materials (coupled with existing spectral data for terrestrial materials and Mars analogues) form a consistent and reliable foundation upon which to explore the mineralogy of Mars with a host of sensors active or soon to be active at Mars. Co-I Bishop is focusing on linking the mineral structure to specific vibrational absorption bands observed in the infrared spectra of several silicate minerals.
SETI Grant # 324 via a subcontract from Brown University, NASA funding from MFR program.