CRISM Web Site

CRISM (Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars)

Beginning 12 Aug. 2005, 11:43:00 UTC
DAYS HRS MINS SECS

Olivine, Phyllosilicates, and Ancient Crater Rims

Phyllosilicates imaged along weathered crater rims suggests a possible origin for this clay-rich family of minerals.

November 19, 2008
Site List Narrows For NASA's Next Mars Landing
Four intriguing places on Mars have risen to the final round as NASA selects a landing site for its next Mars mission, the Mars Science Laboratory. [more]

October 28, 2008
NASA Orbiter Reveals Details of a Wetter Mars
Using CRISM, researchers have observed a new category of minerals spread across large regions of Mars. This discovery suggests that liquid water remained on the planet's surface a billion years later than scientists believed, and it played an important role in shaping the planet's surface and possibly hosting life. [more]

September 17, 2008
Online Collection of CRISM Observations Grows
More than 1,500 new images have been added to the CRISM online map. Visit http://crism-map.jhuapl.edu/ to locate more than 4,500 images from observations of the Red Planet and to connect to the original data on NASA's Planetary Data System (PDS). [more]

August 8, 2008
CRISM in August 8 issue of Science
CRISM science team member Janice Bishop and her co-workers at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., have found layers of different types of clay surrounding Mawrth Vallis that suggest widespread water and even hydrothermal activity. "We were surprised by the variety of clay minerals in this region," says Bishop. Read the SETI press release at http://www.seti.org/news/press-releases/martian-clays.php and "Phyllosilicate Diversity and Past Aqueous Activity Revealed at Mawrth Vallis, Mars" at www.sciencemag.org.

All Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission Updates

Read about the career paths that led members of the CRISM team into space exploration.

The MRO CRISM Spectral Library is an analysis tool for interpreting CRISM data. it currently contains 2,260 spectral analyses of 1,134 Mars-analog samples, all measured under desiccating conditions so that materials that adsorb water look as they would on Mars. This was made avaialble to the community through the PDS on the day that MRO entered Mars orbit!

Thousands of CRISM high-resolution images are available in easy-to-view format accessible through a searchable map. More are being added as they are converted from the full spectral data... [more]

March 2008
Outliers of Water Ice
Over the past few months, we’ve been gaining a better understanding of how Mars’ subsurface, surface, and atmosphere interact and affect the presence of water ice in the northern plains of Mars. Understanding these interactions will help us figure out how water has shaped the landscape of Mars throughout its history. [more]

CRISM View is a first-of-its-kind opportunity to watch Mars through the “eyes” of the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) – as if you were riding along with it on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter! [more]

CRISM has been supporting landing site selection for the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission with hundreds of observations that have been converted to color and mineral indicator maps. [more]

As MRO flies over a given area, CRISM's scanning mechanism tracks a region on the surface and slowly sweeps the field of view across it.

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