Orbiter, Finishing a Mission, Offers a Peek at Mars' Wrinkles

By KENNETH CHANG Published: January 5, 2009

Last month, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter wrapped up its two-year primary science phase, and Mars geologists are wallowing in a bounty of data.

"Technically and scientifically, it has certainly met our expectations," said Alfred S. McEwen, a planetary geologist at the University of Arizona and principal investigator for the orbiter's high-resolution camera.

Images taken by the camera, able to see features down to about a yard in size, have revealed details like rippled textures in what had looked like bland dusty regions, and researchers can now count tiny craters, enabling them to better estimate the age of terrains.

A sensitive spectrometer discovered rocks made of carbonate minerals, which may have formed when young Mars possessed a more benign environment: wet and maybe warm.

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