Astrogeology Science Center

Sols 2574-2576: Characterizing Central Butte

Before landing on the surface of the moon in 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin needed a training ground that matched their destination's cratered surface.

In the U.S., that turned out to be northern Arizona. Starting in 1967, the U.S. Geological Survey used hundreds of pounds of dynamite to blast holes into the surface of ancient lava fields south of

USGS Field Test Support Unit (left to right) Dick Wiser, John Hendricks, Bill Tinnin and Putty Mills with the Explorer, a lunar rover vehicle simulator at Cinder Lake Crater Field east of Flagstaff, December 1968. 

In preperation for Apollo 15, David Scott and James Irwin trained with a training version of the Lunar Rover known as the "Grover". Apollo 15 was the first mission to bring a rover. This allowed the astronauts to cover a larger distance and explore a larger area. 

This is a photo of a pink sand dune in Utah.

Review of all elements included in the GIS template provided to NASA-funded mappers producing USGS SIM-series planetary geologic maps.

This HiRISE image cutout shows Recurring Slope Lineae in Tivat crater on Mars in enhanced color. The narrow, dark flows descend downhill (towards the upper left). Analysis shows that the flows all end at approximately the same slope, which is similar to the angle of repose for sand.
Dark features previously proposed as evidence for significant liquid water flowing on

A tour of the Planetary Geologic Mapping Python toolbox, a suite of GIS tools from the Astrogeology Science Center.
 

An introduction to GIS data using ArcMap 10.1 and higher; intended for planetary geologic mappers. 
 

Roving on Mars: Curiosity's exploration of Gale Crater

* Overview of the Mars Science Laboratory Mission
* Highlights from 5 years of exploring sedimentary environments
* Preview of next steps in Curiosity's climb up Aeolis Mons

Flyover of the southeast Ceti Mensa map. Distinct groups of rock layers, called geologic units, are shaded in different colors, with dark browns representing the oldest rocks and green representing the youngest rocks. All of these rocks formed as wind-blown sand that became trapped in shallow, ephemeral lakes, similar to the wet playas of the desert southwest US. The