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Science 6 August 2004:
Vol. 305. no. 5685, pp. 794 - 799
DOI: 10.1126/science.3050794
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Research Articles

The Spirit Rover's Athena Science Investigation at Gusev Crater, Mars

S. W. Squyres,1* R. E. Arvidson,2 J. F. Bell, III,1 J. Brückner,3 N. A. Cabrol,4 W. Calvin,5 M. H. Carr,6 P. R. Christensen,7 B. C. Clark,8 L. Crumpler,9 D. J. Des Marais,10 C. d'Uston,11 T. Economou,12 J. Farmer,7 W. Farrand,13 W. Folkner,14 M. Golombek,14 S. Gorevan,15 J. A. Grant,16 R. Greeley,7 J. Grotzinger,17 L. Haskin,2 K. E. Herkenhoff,18 S. Hviid,19 J. Johnson,18 G. Klingelhöfer,20 A. Knoll,21 G. Landis,22 M. Lemmon,23 R. Li,24 M. B. Madsen,25 M. C. Malin,26 S. M. McLennan,27 H. Y. McSween,28 D. W. Ming,29 J. Moersch,28 R. V. Morris,29 T. Parker,14 J. W. Rice, Jr.,7 L. Richter,30 R. Rieder,3 M. Sims,10 M. Smith,31 P. Smith,32 L. A. Soderblom,18 R. Sullivan,1 H. Wänke,3 T. Wdowiak,33 M. Wolff,34 A. Yen14

The Mars Exploration Rover Spirit and its Athena science payload have been used to investigate a landing site in Gusev crater. Gusev is hypothesized to be the site of a former lake, but no clear evidence for lacustrine sedimentation has been found to date. Instead, the dominant lithology is basalt, and the dominant geologic processes are impact events and eolian transport. Many rocks exhibit coatings and other characteristics that may be evidence for minor aqueous alteration. Any lacustrine sediments that may exist at this location within Gusev apparently have been buried by lavas that have undergone subsequent impact disruption.

1 Department of Astronomy, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
2 Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA.
3 Abteilung Kosmochemie, Max-Planck-Institut für Chemie, Postfach 3060, D-55128 Mainz, Germany.
4 NASA Ames/SETI Institute, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA.
5 Department of Geological Sciences, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557, USA.
6 U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA.
7 Department of Geological Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA.
8 Lockheed Martin Corporation, Littleton, CO 80127, USA.
9 New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, Albuquerque, NM 87104, USA.
10 NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA.
11 Centre d'Etude Spatiale des Rayonnements, 31028 Toulouse Cedex 4, France.
12 Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
13 Space Science Institute, Boulder, CO 80301, USA.
14 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA.
15 Honeybee Robotics, New York, NY 10012, USA.
16 Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560, USA.
17 Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
18 U.S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff, AZ 86001, USA.
19 Max-Planck-Institut für Aeronomie, D-37191 Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany.
20 Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Staudinger Weg 9, D-55099 Mainz, Germany.
21 Botanical Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
22 NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH 44135, USA.
23 Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
24 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Geodetic Science, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
25 Niels Bohr Institute, Ørsted Laboratory, DK-2100 Copenhagen 0, Denmark.
26 Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, CA 92191, USA.
27 Department of Geosciences, State University of New York, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA.
28 Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
29 NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX 77058, USA.
30 Institut für Raumsimulation, Deutschen Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), Dj-51170 Köln, Germany.
31 NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA.
32 Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
33 Department of Physics, University of Alabama, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA.
34 Space Science Institute, Martinez, GA 30907, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: squyres{at}astro.cornell.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)