TES observations of the martian surface and atmosphere

The TES instrument is a Fourier transform Michelson interferometer operating with 10 or 5 cm^-1 sampling int he thermal infared spectral region from 1700 to 200 cm^-1 (~6 to 50 μm) where virtually all minerals have characteristic fundamental vibrational absorption bands (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8). The TES data used in this paper are among the 6x10⁷ spectra collected during the early mapping phase of the MGS mission from southern hemisphere winter to early summer (aerocentric longitude, L_s, 107° to 297°. The methodology for separating the surface and atmospheric components of the radiance from Mars, which allows detailed analysis and interpretation of surface mineralogy (9, 10), is described in previous papers (10, 11).