Science Results

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The Mars Pathfinder project was one of the first NASA Discovery class missions. It landed a single vehicle with a microrover (Sojourner) and several instruments on the surface of Mars on July 4, 1997. Sojourner's mobility provided the capability of "ground truthing" a landing area over hundreds of square meters on Mars while Pathfinder investigated the surface of Mars with three additional science instruments (a stereoscopic imager with spectral filters on an extendible mast (IMP)), an Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS), and an Atmospheric Structure Instrument/Meteorology package (ASI/MET). These insturments allowed investigations of the geology and surface morphology at sub-meter to a hundred meters scale, the geochemistry and petrology of soils and rocks, the magnetic and mechanical properties of the soil as well as the magnetic properties of the dust, a variety of atmospheric investigations and rotational and orbital dynamics of Mars. Landing downstream from the mouth of a giant catastrophic outflow channel (Ares Vallis) offered the potential for identifying and analyzing a wide variety of crustal materials, from the ancient heavily cratered terrains to intermediate-aged ridged plains to reworked channel deposits. Examination of the different surface materials allowed first-order scientific investigations of the early differentiation and evolution of the crust, the development of weathering products and the early environments and conditions that have existed on Mars.