A heat-sensing camera designed at Arizona State University has provided data to create the most detailed global map yet made of Martian surface properties.

The map uses data from the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS), a nine-band visual and infrared camera on NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter. A version of the map optimized for scientific researchers is available at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

"We used more than 20,000 THEMIS nighttime temperature images to generate the highest resolution surface property map of Mars ever created," says the Geological Survey's Robin Fergason, who earned her doctorate at ASU in 2006. "Now these data are freely available to researchers and the public alike."

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Also: Read a Q&A with a Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) engineer.