This now politically incorrect instrument will scope out the radiation environment around Mars. Looking for hydrogen on Mars with the GRS is a water-witching experiment. There s no other plausible compound on Mars that contains hydrogen other than water. Glaciers covered with a thin layer of Martian dust should also be detectable, he said. The GRS will allow scientists a detailed look into the geochemistry of Mars.
Volcanoes are to be targeted by the instrument.
If Mars ever had an ocean in the past, the instrument should pick up its telltale chemical signatures. The bottom line is that we don t know much about the composition of Mars, except for a very few places where we actually put landers down on the surface and from meteorites thought to come from Mars, Boynton said. It takes a lot of vantage points to understand a big planet. For Boynton, the upcoming launch of 2001 Mars Odyssey is of special meaning. He built and had flown instruments to Mars, not only aboard the failed Mars Observer spacecraft, but more recently on the Mars Polar Lander that crashed into the planet.