infocus #61 March 2021 Designing a microCT instrument for planetary exploration

Planetary ice is a multiphase material consisting of solid ice, particulates, gas inclusions, and in some cases liquid and precipitates. The size, shape and arrangement of particulates and the size and connectivity of voids can reveal something about depositional history and past climate.

DOI: 10.22443/rms.inf.1.199

The North Polar Layered Deposits (NPLD) of Mars are a multikilometer thick sequence of dusty-ice layers thought to record previous climatic conditions much like Earth’s ice sheets record terrestrial climate fluctuations in their stratigraphy. Deciphering this polar record has been, and remains today, a major goal of Mars research (Byrne, 2009). Layers in the NPLD can be detected with remote sensing (Fishbaugh et al., 2010; Herkenhoff et al., 2007; Lalich et al., 2017), but their detailed analysis on a subcentimeter scale requires in situ instrumentation.

MicroCT is a nondestructive three-dimensional analysis technique that has been used by the geophysical science community for many years. Even the smallest commercial units, however, are not portable, much less suited for space travel. To examine the contents of the Mars polar caps in situ, we are building a miniaturised system suitable for remote use (Sarrazin et al., 2020).

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