Mars Reconnaissance
Orbiter's SHARAD instrument top view
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and
its SHARAD (Shallow Subsurface Radar) instrument, which will
seek liquid or frozen water in the first few hundreds of feet
(up to 1 kilometer) of Mars' crust. SHARAD will probe the subsurface
using radar waves using a 15-25 megahertz frequency band in order
to get the desired high-depth resolution.
In this image the SHARAD instrument
has detected subsurface water which I've shown in a cutaway view.
The SHARAD antennae are the two white poles sticking out of MRO's
back. The radar pulses emanating from the antennae have been
simplified. This image only shows the downward pulses but in
reality there would be upward pulses as well. The SHARAD instrument
is a joint project of both NASA and ASI, the Italian Space Agency. |