14 – Methane in Stereo (feat. Nicolas Thomas)

Play Episode (39:23)

The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter’s primary mission is to hunt down sources of trace gasses in the orbiter and characterize them. Chief among these chemicals is Methane, and when it is isolated on the surface, we’re going to want to know what that place looks like. Enter the Colour and Stereo Surface Imagine System, a state of the art instrument that can take stereo images of the surface, allowing us to see Mars in 3D. Nicolas Thomas, Principal Investigator of the instrument, joins us to tell us all about this fascinating device, including its operations, how it targets science and why finding methane is so important.

Links

• The CaSSIS website (University of Bern)
• YouTube – How the Instrument was built
• ESA – CaSSIS Overview

WeMartians Theme Song is “RetroFuture” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/