The existence and location of hydrothermal deposits will provide a positive indication that hot water once existed near the Martian surface, and will provide important information to aid in the selection of future landing sites for exploration and the collection of samples for return to Earth. The TES instrument is operated at Arizona State University as part of NASA's Mars Global Surveyor mission, and was built by Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing. The Mars Global Surveyor mission is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The abundance of hematite is shown in red, with increasing brightness indicating increasing hematite abundance. The location and size of the individual TES observations on the surface are indicated by the individual squares.
Black squares indicate observations with no detectable hematite.
The TES data are superimposed on a Viking photomosaic for context.