We're finding out as much as we can about our nearest habitable neighbor in order to lay the groundwork for the eventual colonization of Mars. There is nothing scientifically stopping us.

Adrian Brown
Research Scientist
Summary
Published articles Show More
Martian north polar cap summer water cycle
Published in arXiv preprint arXiv:1605.03487
A key outstanding question in Martian science is are the polar caps gaining or losing mass and what are the implications for past, current and future climate? To address this question, we use observations from the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) of the north polar cap during late summer for multiple Martian years, to m...
Transient bright “halos” on the South Polar Residual Cap of Mars: Implications for mass-balance
Published in Icarus
Spacecraft imaging of Mars south polar region during mid-southern summer of Mars year 28 (2007) observed bright halo-like features surrounding many of the pits, scarps and slopes of the heavily eroded carbon dioxide ice of the South Polar Residual Cap (SPRC). These features had not been observed before, and have not been observed since. We report ...
The case for a modern multiwavelength, polarization-sensitive LIDAR in orbit around Mars
Published in Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer
We present the scientific case to build a multiple-wavelength, active, near-infrared (NIR) instrument to measure the reflected intensity and polarization characteristics of backscattered radiation from planetary surfaces and atmospheres. We focus on the ability of such an instrument to enhance, potentially revolutionize, our understanding of climat...
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Decrypting the Formation Conditions of the Basement Carbonate-Bearing Rocks at Nili Fossae
The Nili Fossae region is the site of a number of proposed Landing Sites for the Mars 2020 Rover. A distinguishing feature of many of these sites is the access to large exposures of carbonate (Ehlmann et al. 2008). Serpentinization has been proposed as a formation mechanism of these carbonates, including carbonated (Brown et al. 2010, Viviano, et a...
The Seasonal Behavior of Ice in Craters at the Martian Northern Polar Region
Simulation of the image generation process for CRISM spectrometer data
Hyperspectral near-infrared scenes have been simulated to analyze the contributions of surface minerals, atmosphere and sensor noise on images of Mars. Modeling the remote sensing process creates a means for independent analysis of the influence of the environment and instruments on detection accuracy of the surface composition. The system models s...