Jun 14 2001
From The Space Library
Herbert V. Frey of NASA’s GSFC revealed a fundamental new finding about the complexion of Mars’s surface. According to Frey and his team of researchers, data gathered by Mars Global Surveyor had corrected a commonly held belief about the topography of the Red Planet and the age of its crust. Most scientists had believed that the crust covering the relatively smooth northern lowlands of the planet was much younger than that of the rest of the planet. However, Frey’s research using Surveyor’s pathbreaking instruments had shown that the lowlands are not actually smooth at all. Using the measurements obtained by the spacecraft’s laser altimeter, Frey and his team had documented more than 600 ancient craters lying just beneath a layer of dust on the lowlands, many of the craters larger than 30 miles (48 kilometers) in diameter. From this finding, the team had concluded that the crust of the northern lowlands is older than scientists had expected. According to James W. Head of Brown University, who was not a member of Frey’s research contingent, the findings would “push the reset button” on ideas about how Mars had evolved as a planet. (Robert C. Cowen, “Red Planet Still a Mystery, but Mars Global Surveyor Makes It Less So,” Christian Science Monitor, 14 June 2001.)
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