Introducing Planet Four: Terrains

Dear Martian Citizen Scientists!

We are excited to introduce to you a new companion citizen science project to Planet Four called “Planet Four: Terrains” built on the Zooniverse’s new platform. You have explored with us here in Planet Four some of the most detailed surface observations ever made in our solar system and many of you have acknowledged and wondered about all the other amazing features visible in these images that we did not ask to be studied, like spiders, networks of channels and weirdly looking craters. (some of you will remember that one of these even led to a re-observation of the same crater with the HiRISE camera).

HiRISE imaged spiders Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

It is an interesting fact that when one decides to make a camera that can resolve a lot of small details, that it will not be able to scan a lot of area. One has to decide, as long as we don’t have infinite data transport capabilities and infinite mission time at other planets and moons in the solar system. That’s why the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), the spacecraft that houses the HiRISE camera that produced all the images in the Planet Four project has a complementary camera system onboard to provide context, appropriately called CTX for ConTeXt camera. It has a lower resolution than HiRISE (approx 5-6 m compared to HiRISE’s 25 to 50 cm) but takes images from a far larger region than HiRISE.

CTX image – Image Credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science System

So here is our idea: We confirmed that many of the features you were asking about are still recognizable with the lower resolution images of CTX. Therefore we would like your help in gathering spatial statistics in where around the south pole we can find which kind of patterns on the ground that are related to CO2 ice activities. Your help in classifying CTX data into a set of ground patterns will serve to decide where the HiRISE camera will be pointed next during 2016’s south polar spring season observation campaign. This way your contributions directly improve the scientific output of both CTX and the HiRISE camera and we are very excited to provide to you a way to point the highest resolution camera in the solar system to the most interesting areas of the Martian south pole!

You can find the new project, a more detailed science case description and an awesome spotter’s guide at this address: http://terrains.planetfour.org

Thanks as always for your time and your enthusiasm!

Michael