Identification and Spectral Characteristic Analysis of the Tianwen-1 Exhaust Disturbed Area Using HiRIC and HiRISE Imagery
The Tianwen-1 lander exhaust induced obvious disturbances to the Martian soil. This study examines the extent and nature of the disturbed area caused by Tianwen-1 landing rocket exhaust by utilizing high-resolution Mars reconnaissance orbiter high-resolution imaging science experiment (HiRISE) and T...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
IEEE
2025-01-01
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| Series: | IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10879380/ |
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| Summary: | The Tianwen-1 lander exhaust induced obvious disturbances to the Martian soil. This study examines the extent and nature of the disturbed area caused by Tianwen-1 landing rocket exhaust by utilizing high-resolution Mars reconnaissance orbiter high-resolution imaging science experiment (HiRISE) and Tianwen-1 high-resolution imaging camera images. The boundary delineation results of the disturbed area show that the entire disturbed region has a maximum east-west distance of ∼118 m and a maximum north-south distance of ∼152 m. The northern part of the disturbed area is smaller than the southern part, which can be attributed to the terrain in the northeast being higher than the southwest. Based on the magnitude of the disturbance effect on the reflectance, the disturbed area, whose reflectance is decreased, is divided into diffuse blast zone and focus blast zone (FBZ), with FBZ experiencing a higher degree of disturbance. Additionally, passivation impact zone (PIZ), the area disturbed by both exhaust plume and rocket fuel passivation, has a higher reflectance than the undisturbed background. This is probably due to the accumulation of the fine soil particles injected by the fuel passivation process. The study also used HiRISE images to analyze the spectral characteristics of the FBZ, passivation zone (PZ), PIZ, and ZOI, a zone of interest. The results show that the pixels in different zones are clustered in the blue-green reflectance and near infrared-RED space, particularly indicating the distinguishability of the PZ and ZOI, which are similar in surface reflectance. This result indicates that in the fuel-passivated direction, the Martian surface impacted by both exhaust and excess fuel may undergo a more complex disturbance than that in the nonpassivated direction. |
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| ISSN: | 1939-1404 2151-1535 |