Annual Report 2019

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Mars camera made in Bern
Prof. Dr. Nicolas Thomas

"If the Mars camera, CaSSIS, were in Bern, you could resolve cars in Zurich – in colour and stereo!"

Matter and the universe

CaSSIS returns spectacular images from Mars

The Mars camera CaSSIS delivers high-resolution color images of the surface of Mars which caused something of a stir worldwide in 2019. The camera system developed at the University of Bern started its journey to Mars in 2016 on board the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) spacecraft

 

ExoMars is a space mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) in cooperation with the Russian space agency Roskosmos. ExoMars stands for exobiology on Mars: For the first time since the 1970s, active research is being conducted into life on Mars.

The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) has been in orbit around Mars since October 2016; in 2022, the rover “Rosalind Franklin” is due to start its journey to the surface of Mars. The TGO and the rover will provide insights into how water and the geochemical environment on Mars have changed over the course of time.

Highest quality colour data from Mars

On board the TGO is the Color and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS), a camera system developed by an international team led by Nicolas Thomas from the Physics Institute at the University of Bern.

CaSSIS has been observing Mars since April 2018 and is delivering high-resolution color images of the surface of Mars, which have caused an international sensation. "Spacecraft at Mars can provide images with at least 1'000 times higher resolution than we can get from ground-based or Earth-orbiting telescopes. In addition, the stereo capability allows us to relate local composition to topography. It gives us the third dimension", says Nicolas Thomas.

In March 2019, the CaSSIS camera delivered its first image of InSight, NASA’s lander on Mars. The images that followed in September 2019 then provided indications of gas eruptions in dune fields, climate change and dry avalanches on Mars. The CaSSIS images thus bear witness to the impressive scientific capabilities of the Bern camera system.

Did you know?

"The Mars camera CaSSIS was finished in record time: Normally you would expect the development of such an instrument to take 38 months. Nicolas Thomas and his team needed just 23 months."

CaSSIS also helps find good landing sites

The team is also targeting active geyser structures in the southern hemisphere. " Some of these geysers can reach 140 metres high – the same as the Jet d’Eau in Geneva. But the jets are gas driven and they appear to be very difficult to identify against the background", explains Nicolas Thomas.

The CaSSIS image of the Oyama Crater on Mars is particularly exciting: “In a way, the distinct layers exposed in the walls of the small crater give us a window back in time,” says Nicolas Thomas.

Areas like these are particularly interesting for the future exploration of Mars because the influence of water there indicate possible traces of past life. “The CaSSIS images thus also help us to identify areas which would make suitable landing sites and which are interesting in terms of future exploration on our neighboring planet.”

All data will be placed in a public archive. The first data are planned to be released to the public in mid-2020.

Thawing dunes: Gas eruptions during the thawing of ice create the dark spots in this dune field at the north pole on Mars. © ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Unnamed crater on Mars filled with material that once flowed here and probably contains a mixture of rock, ice or frost and other soil deposits. © ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The Gale Crater, today the site of NASA's Curiosity Rover, has a diameter of about 150 km and is located near the border between the southern highlands and the northern lowlands of Mars. © ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
This image is particularly interesting because the different layers in the walls of the small crater within the Oyama Crater at the top of the picture are exposed, giving us a window into the past. Such areas are often considered high potential landing sites for missions due to the influence of water and thus their potential to preserve traces of past life. © ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

Support of the SERI / Swiss Space Office

CaSSIS is a project of the University of Bern and is financed by the Swiss Space Office of the State Secretariat for Education, Research, and Innovation SERI through the PRODEX programme (PROgramme de Développement d'Expériences scientifiques) of the European Space Agency ESA. The development of the instrument hardware was also supported by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), the INAF/Astronomical Observatory Padua and the Space Research Center (CBK) in Warsaw.

For all instruments developed in Switzerland, major contributions and/or partial deliveries come from Swiss industry. The PRODEX programme, under which scientific instruments or sub-systems are provided, requires industrial participation and thus promotes knowledge and technology transfer between universities and industry and gives Switzerland a structural competitive advantage as a business location – not least thanks to spill-over effects on other sectors of the participating companies. Swiss participation in ESA programmes enables Swiss players from science and industry to position themselves ideally in ESA activities in this field.

Bernese space exploration: Part of the world's elite since the first moon landing

When Buzz Aldrin became the second man to step out of the lunar module on July 21, 1969, the first thing he did was to unfurl the University of Bern’s solar wind sail and plant it into the ground on the moon, even before doing the same with the American flag. This Solarwind Composition Experiment (SWC), which was planned and evaluated by Prof. Dr. Johannes Geiss and his team at the Physics Institute of the University of Bern, was a first major highlight in the history of Bernese space exploration.

Bernese space exploration has been part of the world’s elite ever since. When viewed in terms of figures, it reveals an impressive balance sheet: Instruments have flown into the upper atmosphere and ionosphere with rockets 25 times (1967-1993), into the stratosphere on balloon flights 9 times (1991-2008), more than 30 instruments have accompanied space probes on their missions, and with CHEOPS, the University of Bern is sharing responsibility with ESA for an entire mission.

The successful work of the Department of Space Research and Planetary Sciences at the University of Bern’s Physics Institute was consolidated by the founding of a university competence center, the Center for Space and Habitability (CSH). The Swiss National Science Foundation also awarded the University of Bern the National Centre for Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS, which it manages together with the University of Geneva.

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