TY - JOUR
T1 - Geomorphologic exploration targets at the Zhurong landing site in the southern Utopia Planitia of Mars
AU - Ye, Binlong
AU - Qian, Yuqi
AU - Xiao, Long
AU - Michalski, Joseph R.
AU - Li, Yiliang
AU - Wu, Bo
AU - Qiao, Le
N1 - Funding Information:
All data used in this paper are available in NASA Planetary Data System (pds.jpl.nasa.gov). We thank J. Dickson for building CTX mosaic data, which are available on this website ( http://murray-lab.caltech.edu/CTX/ ). DEMs used in this study are available on the Digital Repository at The University of Hong Kong (doi: https://doi.org/10.25442/hku.15132480 ). The authors especially thank the editor William McKinnon, Chris Okubo and an anonymous reviewer for their feedbacks and insightful suggestions that improved the quality of this manuscript. Discussion with Gongbao Nan helped to understand deep-sea mud volcanoes and methane on Earth. L.X. and Y.Q. were supported by the Pre-research Project on Civil Aerospace Technologies of CNSA (No. D020101 ), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41830214 ). L.Q. was supported by the Pre-research Project on Civil Aerospace Technologies of CNSA (No. D020102 ). J. Michalski and B. Ye were supported by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council Research Impact Fund Project No. R5043-19 .
Funding Information:
All data used in this paper are available in NASA Planetary Data System (pds.jpl.nasa.gov). We thank J. Dickson for building CTX mosaic data, which are available on this website (http://murray-lab.caltech.edu/CTX/). DEMs used in this study are available on the Digital Repository at The University of Hong Kong (doi:https://doi.org/10.25442/hku.15132480). The authors especially thank the editor William McKinnon, Chris Okubo and an anonymous reviewer for their feedbacks and insightful suggestions that improved the quality of this manuscript. Discussion with Gongbao Nan helped to understand deep-sea mud volcanoes and methane on Earth. L.X. and Y.Q. were supported by the Pre-research Project on Civil Aerospace Technologies of CNSA (No. D020101), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41830214). L.Q. was supported by the Pre-research Project on Civil Aerospace Technologies of CNSA (No. D020102). J. Michalski and B. Ye were supported by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council Research Impact Fund Project No. R5043-19.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2021/12/15
Y1 - 2021/12/15
N2 - On May 15, 2021, Tianwen-1's rover Zhurong landed successfully at 109.926°E, 25.066°N, in southern Utopia Planitia on Mars. The Zhurong landing site contains a wide range of geomorphic exploration targets including troughs, raised ridges, pitted cones, mesas, sand dunes and crater ejecta. Aspects of all of these features suggest formation through interactions between volatiles, sediments, and magma. Pitted cones are invaluable windows into the subsurface and intriguing astrobiology targets for Martian life considering that they potentially formed from diapiric upwelling of fine-grained sediments (i.e. mud volcanism), a process that on Earth is often associated with methane release. The ground-penetrating radar onboard Zhurong will provide fundamentally new perspectives on the presence, distribution, and abundance of subsurface water-ice, a strategic natural resource for future crewed Mars exploration.
AB - On May 15, 2021, Tianwen-1's rover Zhurong landed successfully at 109.926°E, 25.066°N, in southern Utopia Planitia on Mars. The Zhurong landing site contains a wide range of geomorphic exploration targets including troughs, raised ridges, pitted cones, mesas, sand dunes and crater ejecta. Aspects of all of these features suggest formation through interactions between volatiles, sediments, and magma. Pitted cones are invaluable windows into the subsurface and intriguing astrobiology targets for Martian life considering that they potentially formed from diapiric upwelling of fine-grained sediments (i.e. mud volcanism), a process that on Earth is often associated with methane release. The ground-penetrating radar onboard Zhurong will provide fundamentally new perspectives on the presence, distribution, and abundance of subsurface water-ice, a strategic natural resource for future crewed Mars exploration.
KW - climate
KW - Mars
KW - missions
KW - rover
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85116665404&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.epsl.2021.117199
DO - 10.1016/j.epsl.2021.117199
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85116665404
SN - 0012-821X
VL - 576
JO - Earth and Planetary Science Letters
JF - Earth and Planetary Science Letters
M1 - 117199
ER -