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Originally published in Science Express on 17 February 2005
Science 11 March 2005:
Vol. 307. no. 5715, pp. 1576 - 1581
DOI: 10.1126/science.1108806
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Research Articles

Mars Surface Diversity as Revealed by the OMEGA/Mars Express Observations

Jean-Pierre Bibring,1* Yves Langevin,1 Aline Gendrin,1 Brigitte Gondet,1 François Poulet,1 Michel Berthé,1 Alain Soufflot,1 Ray Arvidson,2 Nicolas Mangold,3 John Mustard,4 P. Drossart,5 the OMEGA team6

The Observatoire pour la Minéralogie, l'Eau, les Glaces, et l'Activité (OMEGA) investigation, on board the European Space Agency Mars Express mission, is mapping the surface composition of Mars at a 0.3- to 5-kilometer resolution by means of visible–near-infrared hyperspectral reflectance imagery. The data acquired during the first 9 months of the mission already reveal a diverse and complex surface mineralogy, offering key insights into the evolution of Mars. OMEGA has identified and mapped mafic iron-bearing silicates of both the northern and southern crust, localized concentrations of hydrated phyllosilicates and sulfates but no carbonates, and ices and frosts with a water-ice composition of the north polar perennial cap, as for the south cap, covered by a thin carbon dioxide–ice veneer.

1 Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale (IAS), Bâtiment 121, 91405 Orsay Campus, France.
2 Earth and Planetary Sciences, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA.
3 Interactions et Dynamique des Environnements de Surface (IDES), Bâtiment 509, 91405 Orsay Campus, France.
4 Geological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA.
5 Laboratoire d'Etudes Spatiales et d'Instrumentation en Astrophysique (LESIA), Observatoire de Paris, 92195 Meudon, France.
6 The OMEGA co-investigator team: Michel Berthé,1 Jean-Pierre Bibring,1 Stéphane Erard,1 Olivier Forni,1 Aline Gendrin,1 Brigitte Gondet,1 François Poulet,1 Alain Soufflot,1 Michel Combes,2 Pierre Drossart,2 Thérèse Encrenaz,2 Thierry Fouchet,2 Riccardo Merchiorri,2 GianCarlo Belluci,3Francesca Altieri,3 Vittorio Formisano,3 Guillaume Bonello,4 Fabricio Capaccioni,4 Pricilla Cerroni,4 Angioletta Coradini,4 Sergio Fonti,5 Volodia Kottsov,6 Nikolai Ignatiev,6 Vassili Moroz,6 Dimitri Titov,6 Ludmilla Zasova,6 Nicolas Mangold,7 Patrick Pinet,8 Sylvain Douté,9 Bernard Schmitt,9 Christophe Sotin,10 Ernst Hauber,11 Harald Hoffmann,11 Ralf Jaumann,11 Uwe Keller,12 Ray Arvidson,13 John Mustard,14 Tom Duxbury,15 François Forget.16 [Affiliations: 1IAS, Bâtiment 121, 91405 Orsay Campus, France. 2LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, 92195 Meudon, France. 3Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario–Istituto Nazionale di AstroFisica (INAF), 00133 Rome, Italy. 4Istituto di Astrofisica Spatiale–INAF, 00133 Rome, Italy. 5University of Lecce, 73100 Lecce, Italy. 6IKI, 117997 Moscow, Russia. 7IDES, Bâtiment 509, 91405 Orsay Campus, France. 8Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées, 31400 Toulouse, France. 9Laboratoire de Planétologie, 38041 Grenoble, France. 10Planétologie, Université de Nantes, 44322 Nantes, France. 11Deutschen Zentrum für Luft-and Raumfahrt (DLR), 12489 Berlin, Germany. 12Max Planck Institut für Sonnensystemforschung (MPS), 37191 Lindau, Germany. 13Earth and Planetary Sciences, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA. 14Geological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA. 15Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, 91109 USA. 16Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique, Université Paris 6, 75252 Paris, France.]

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: bibring{at}ias.u-psud.fr

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