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Session: Stars, Planets and the Interstellar Medium

Name: Ms. Margarita Gega (National & Kapodistrian Univ. of Athens)
Coauthors: No coauthors were included.
Type: Oral
Title: Detection of potential maar craters on planet Mars using HRSC/MEx data
Abstract:

Detection of potential maar craters on planet Mars using HRSC/MEx data Gega M.1, O. Sykioti2 and I.A. Daglis1,3 1 Department of Physics, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece 2 Institute for Astronomy, Astrophysics, Space Applications and Remote Sensing, National Observatory of Athens, Athens, Greece 3 Hellenic Space Center, Athens, Greece Αbstract In this study, we aim to detect potential maar craters on the surface of planet Mars. A maar crater is a small surficial feature corresponding to a particular type of volcanic crater, which is created by a violent explosion that occurs as magma moves up toward the surface and hits groundwater or a body of surface water. Typically, magma that contains enough gas to erupt explosively forms a cinder cone, as debris accumulates around the volcano's vent. But if abundant water exists in the region of the volcano, the magma interacts with the water, causing highly explosive eruptions that build a maar rather than a cinder cone. The study of maar craters provides information about the geophysical activities that have developed below the Martian surface and are considered as indicators of the existence of water in the past. Studying the maar craters would also help to better identify potential landing sites for future missions. For our study we have obtained data from the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) from ESA’s Mars Express mission (MEx), and we have calculated the morphological characteristics such as diameter, perimeter and area of 245 craters on the Martian surface. The number of craters resulted after keeping in the data catalog only those craters that can be classified as potential Maar craters and then classifying them based on their shape. We then investigated the relation of their density and geographical distribution between the north and south hemispheres. Finally, we used existing global mineral maps from the hyperspectral OMEGA/MEx data in order to characterize their general surface composition and to investigate whether these potential maar craters contain hydrated minerals. This work is part of the BSc thesis of the leading author, who is an under-graduate student in the Department of Physics of the National Kapodistrian University of Athens.