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ma=86400 The emerging archaeological record of Mars | Nature Astronomy
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The emerging archaeological record of Mars

Nature Astronomy volume 8, pages 1490–1492 (2024)Cite this article

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Humans first reached Mars in 1971, initiating the record of human activity on the Red Planet. As planetary scientists plan for future planetary protection procedures for Mars, they should also consider the developing archaeological record on one of our nearest planets.

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Fig. 1: Map of Mars illustrating the fourteen missions to Mars, key sites and examples of artefacts contributing to the development of the archaeological record.

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Acknowledgements

The basemap for Fig. 1 was drafted by K. Andrzejewski (Kansas Geological Survey). Digital elevation model (DEM) data were derived from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA), an instrument aboard NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft and from the High-Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC), an instrument aboard the European Space Agency’s Mars Express (MEX) spacecraft. We thank H. Erftenbeck, C. N. Runnels, D. Stewart and J. Smith for reading early drafts of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kansas Geological Survey, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA

    Justin A. Holcomb & Rolfe D. Mandel

  2. Department of Anthropology, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, USA

    Beth L. O’Leary

  3. Centro de Astrobiología (CAB, CSIC-INTA), Madrid, Spain

    Alberto G. Fairén

  4. Department of Astronomy, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Alberto G. Fairén

  5. Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Karl W. Wegmann

  6. Center for Geospatial Analytics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Karl W. Wegmann

Authors
  1. Justin A. Holcomb
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  2. Beth L. O’Leary
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  3. Alberto G. Fairén
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  4. Rolfe D. Mandel
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  5. Karl W. Wegmann
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Correspondence to Justin A. Holcomb.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Holcomb, J.A., O’Leary, B.L., Fairén, A.G. et al. The emerging archaeological record of Mars. Nat Astron 8, 1490–1492 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-024-02439-w

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