Where Planet Four: Terrains Might Go Next

We’re now 60% through the third set of CTX images on Planet Four: Terrains. We’ve started to think about where we want to search next. We want to continue to fill in the area searched from -70 N latitude to the Martian South Pole. I’ve been coming up with the CTX image selection since the launch of Planet Four: Terrains. I wrote a code that goes through the list of publicly available CTX images and tries to pull  out a well balanced distribution of ice-free CTX observations across specific latitude and longitude bins. I thought I’d share my proposed set of new CTX images to search. I’ve sent this list of images to the rest of the science team, and I’m awaiting their feedback. The new set if accepted by the team, will fill in gaps in our coverage and especially between -70 and -75 N latitude. When we have a final list of CTX image to search after dataset 3, we’ll update you here on the blog.

Color Code for figures below.

Red= first dataset at launched and used in our first paper

Green= second dataset

Magenta = third dataset that expanded out to -70 – currently being reviewed on the site

Gray = 4th proposed set of CTX observations to search

The CTX image outlines are overlaid on an elevation interpolated map. Latitude and longitude lines are in 10 degree intervals for above and below.  The colors below represent geologic units, but for this comparison we’re focusing on spatial distribution and coverage. More details can be found here