Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES)

Map of Mars showing the abundance of the silicate mineral, plagioclase, as interpreted from MGS TES data by J. Bandfield (2002), Global Mineral Distributions on Mars, Journal of Geophysical Research 107(E6), 5042, doi:10.1029/2001JE001510. Image Credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech/Arizona State University

The Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) acquired thermal infrared observations of Mars that were used to map mineral occurrences, infer surface physical properties, and examine atmosphere/weather conditions for more than 4 Mars years. MSSS President Michael Malin was a Co-Investigator on the Mars Observer TES and Mars Global Surveyor TES experiments.