{"id":191,"date":"2026-03-17T11:06:39","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T10:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/geops.geol.u-psud.fr\/etp\/?p=191"},"modified":"2026-03-17T11:07:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T10:07:06","slug":"mars-express-hrsc-omega-and-pfs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geops.geol.u-psud.fr\/etp\/en\/2026\/03\/17\/mars-express-hrsc-omega-and-pfs\/","title":{"rendered":"Mars Express: HRSC, OMEGA and PFS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Funding:<\/b> CNES, CNRS\/INSU<\/p>\n<p><b>Principal investigators:<\/b> F. Costard, F. Schmidt<\/p>\n<p><b>GEOPS staff involved:<\/b> F. Costard, S. Bouley, A. S\u00e9journ\u00e9, F. Schmidt, F. Andrieu, A. Hildenbrand, B. Desoubrie, M. Daldoul, L. Martinez<\/p>\n<p><b>Partners:<\/b> M. Vincendon (IAS), S. Bourguignon (Ecole Centrale de Nantes), D. M\u00e8ge and J. Gurgurewicz (Polish Academy of Sciences)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-146\" src=\"https:\/\/geops.geol.u-psud.fr\/etp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/12\/Mars_Express_pillars.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"666\" srcset=\"https:\/\/geops.geol.u-psud.fr\/etp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/12\/Mars_Express_pillars-200x133.jpg 200w, https:\/\/geops.geol.u-psud.fr\/etp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/12\/Mars_Express_pillars-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/geops.geol.u-psud.fr\/etp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/12\/Mars_Express_pillars-400x266.jpg 400w, https:\/\/geops.geol.u-psud.fr\/etp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/12\/Mars_Express_pillars-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/geops.geol.u-psud.fr\/etp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/12\/Mars_Express_pillars-768x511.jpg 768w, https:\/\/geops.geol.u-psud.fr\/etp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/12\/Mars_Express_pillars-800x533.jpg 800w, https:\/\/geops.geol.u-psud.fr\/etp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/12\/Mars_Express_pillars.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Mars Express is the ESA\u2019s first mission to orbit another planet. Since 2003, it has enabled us to revolutionise our understanding of the Red Planet. Mars Express carries a number of instruments dedicated to studying the surface. Our team is involved in the Mars Express mission: Fran\u00e7ois Costard is Principal Investigator (PI) for the HRSC imager; Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Schmidt is Co-Investigator for the OMEGA hyperspectral imager and the PFS spectrograph.<br \/>\nRegarding the HRSC camera, the aim of this project is to analyse the geomorphological processes on Mars (lobed tsunami deposits in a northern ocean, ancient glaciations of the southern highlands, impact craters) and the possible interactions between these processes through a detailed analysis of the HRSC camera\u2019s images and DTMs. Our team\u2019s key research themes concern (1) the distribution of ice in the permafrost of Mars\u2019s northern highlands, (2) the identification of mega-tsunamis linked to the presence of a late ocean, (3) an analysis of late Hesperian fluvial formations along the Martian dichotomy, and (4) the origin and formation of the Martian Highlands. We employ a multi-disciplinary approach combining photo-interpretation, geological mapping and Artificial Intelligence.<br \/>\nThe scientific project led by the GEOPS laboratory to analyse data from the OMEGA and PFS instruments focuses specifically on the study of Martian ice. Indeed, the majority of current active phenomena on Mars are of climatic origin, involving the exchange of water ice or CO\u2082. The aim of this research programme is the systematic monitoring and modelling of these active phenomena in order to understand their origins and determine their roles in Martian climate history over the last million years. We propose to focus on three dynamic phenomena subject to recent Martian climatic variations through dust and volatile cycles: \u2018spiders\u2019, \u2018dark flows\u2019, \u2018gullies\u2019 and \u2018Swiss cheese\u2019. We are developing a radiative transfer model for compacted ice (Andrieu et al., 2015) as the compactness of CO\u2082 ice is thought to be variable and crucial for a proper understanding of surface-atmosphere interactions on Mars, particularly active flow processes (Andrieu, 2018).<br \/>\nWe are developing spectral analysis tools, notably to determine the composition and texture (roughness, grain size, etc.) of Martian surfaces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Funding: CNES, CNRS\/INSU Principal investigators: F. Costard, F. Schmidt GEOPS  [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,24,26,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-datation-equipements-en","category-mars-planetes-primitif-en","category-processus-planetaire-en","category-volcanisme-actif-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geops.geol.u-psud.fr\/etp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geops.geol.u-psud.fr\/etp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geops.geol.u-psud.fr\/etp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geops.geol.u-psud.fr\/etp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geops.geol.u-psud.fr\/etp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/geops.geol.u-psud.fr\/etp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":193,"href":"https:\/\/geops.geol.u-psud.fr\/etp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions\/193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geops.geol.u-psud.fr\/etp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geops.geol.u-psud.fr\/etp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geops.geol.u-psud.fr\/etp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}