Story highlights
- Gravity map gives detailed look at Red Planet's surface and interior
- Will be useful for future Mars exploration
- NASA is planning to send humans to Mars in near future
(CNN)By tracking the gravitational pull on spacecraft over Mars, NASA has created one of the most detailed maps yet of the Red Planet's surface, and what lies beneath.
"Gravity maps allow us to see inside a planet, just as a doctor uses an X-ray to see inside a patient," Antonio Genova of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) said in a statement.
"The new gravity map will be helpful for future Mars exploration, because better knowledge of the planet's gravity anomalies helps mission controllers insert spacecraft more precisely into orbit about Mars."
As well as providing insight for future missions, the gravity map also offers explanations for developments in the planet's past.
"The better resolution of the new map helps interpret how the crust of the planet changed over Mars' history in many regions," Genova said.
Mission to Mars
Interest in the Red Planet is at its highest point in years, with the spectacular success of "The Martian" movie (which was made with NASA cooperation) and the launch of the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter this month.
Recurring slope lineae (RSL) on Mars are seasonally abundant along the steep slopes of ancient bedrock in the Valles Marineris canyon region. Here, the RSL are depicted as bright fans that extend down the slopes.
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The RSL appear in places such as the Coprates Chasma ridge, within the Valles Marineris canyon, during the northern summer and southern winter (regarding Mars' poles). They begin as dark streaks and fade over time, sometimes leaving bright streaks that are thought to be salt after the moisture evaporates.
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Researchers have also noted surprising land slumps in places such as the Melas Chasma and the Valles Marineris canyon. The RSL follow the sun and change with the seasons, but this streak happened to correspond with a topographic slump about 59 feet wide.
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Based on a new study of RSL, the white arrows on this image show the largest concentration of the seasonal streaks in the Coprates Montes area of the canyon.
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Water still flows across the surface of Mars from time to time, NASA scientists said in 2015. In the photo above, dark, narrow streaks called recurring slope lineae are seen flowing downhill on Mars. Scientists have inferred that they were formed by contemporary flowing water.
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Recurring slope lineae emanate out of the walls of the Garni crater on Mars.
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Recurring slope lineae flow down the west-facing slopes of Coprates Chasma, which is in the equatorial region of Mars.
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"The existence of liquid water, even if it is super salty briny water, gives the possibility that if there's life on Mars, that we have a way to describe how it might survive," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA.
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It remains to be seen whether the new discovery improves the odds of life on Mars, but researcher Mary Beth Wilhelm said the results suggest "more habitable conditions on the near surface of Mars than previously thought."
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The ExoMars will seek evidence of methane and other atmospheric gases that could mean there is active biological life on Mars.
Hopes of finding life on the planet were improved substantially last year, when NASA announced the discovery of liquid water on Mars.
"The existence of liquid water, even if it is super salty briny water, gives the possibility that if there's life on Mars, that we have a way to describe how it might survive," John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA, said at the time.
Future Martians?
Gravity map of Mars. White and red are areas of higher gravity; blue lower.
While current explorations of Mars have been robot and satellite driven, NASA hopes to launch a manned mission to the planet in the near future.
"We are further down the path to sending humans to Mars than at any point in NASA's history," Charles Boden, administrator of the space agency, said in a speech in October last year.
"We have a lot of work to do to get humans to Mars, but we'll get there."
In the short term, this will focus on the development of the Orion capsule and Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket, designed to transport astronauts to deep space destinations. An unmanned test flight of the two components is planned for 2018.
One-on-one with Scott Kelly 01:36
Astronaut Scott Kelly, who recently returned to Earth after almost a year in space, was also a key experiment in the viability of future Mars trips. Kelly's extended stay on the International Space Station was designed to test the psychological and physical effects of long-term space travel, as would be required by any journey to Mars.
"If we go to Mars and we land on Mars and we stay on Mars, we can experience Martian gravity and don't have an ultra-long time in microgravity, which I think is helpful," Kelly told CNN's Sanjay Gupta this month.
"I think where we run into issues is flying around Mars and coming back, because then you have guys in space for a year and a half. I wouldn't say you can't but I would say that's pretty significant based on my experience."
