Mira Gergácz

Mira Gergácz, Ákos Kereszturi

Before the seasonal polar ice cap starts to expand towards lower latitudes on Mars, small frost patches may condensate out during the cold night and they may remain on the surface even during the day in shady areas. If ice in these areas can persist before the arrival of the contiguous ice cap, they may remain after the recession of it too, until the irradiation increases and the ice is met with direct sunlight. In case these small patches form periodically at the same location, slow chemical changes might occur as well. To see the spatial and temporal occurrence of such ice patches, large number of optical images should be searched for and checked. The aim of this study is to survey the ice condensation period on the surface with an automatized method using a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) applied to High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) imagery from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission. The CNN trained to recognise small ice patches is automatizing the search, making it feasible to analyse large datasets. Previously a manual image analysis was conducted on 110 images from the southern hemisphere, captured by the HiRISE camera. Out of these, 37 images were identified with smaller ice patches, which were used to train the CNN. This approach is applied now to find further images with potential water ice patches in the latitude band between -40° and -60°, but contrarily to the training dataset recorded between 140-200° solar longitude, the images were taken from the condensation period between Ls = 0° to 90°. The model was ran on 171 new HiRISE images randomly picked from the given period between -40° and -60° latitude band, creating 73155 small image chunks. The model classified 2 images that show small, probably recently condensed frost patches and 327 chunks were predicted to show ice with more than 60% probability.

Mira Gergácz, Ákos Kereszturi

The search for ephemeral liquid water on Mars is an ongoing activity. After the recession of the seasonal polar ice cap on Mars, small water ice patches may be left behind in shady places due to the low thermal conductivity of the Martian surface and atmosphere. During late spring and early summer, these patches may be exposed to direct sunlight and warm up rapidly enough for the liquid phase to emerge. To see the spatial and temporal occurrence of such ice patches, optical images should be searched for and checked. Previously a manual image analysis was conducted on 110 images from the southern hemisphere, captured by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter space mission. Out of these, 37 images were identified with smaller ice patches, which were distinguishable by their brightness, colour and strong connection to local topographic shading. In this study, a convolutional neural network (CNN) is applied to find further images with potential water ice patches in the latitude band between -40° and -60°, where the seasonal retreat of the polar ice cap happens. Previously analysed HiRISE images were used to train the model, where each image was split into hundreds of pieces (chunks), expanding the training dataset to 6240 images. A test run conducted on 38 new HiRISE images indicates that the program can generally recognise small bright patches, however further training might be needed for more precise identification. This further training has been conducted now, incorporating the results of the previous test run. To retrain the model, 18646 chunks were analysed and 48 additional epochs were ran. In the end the model produced a 94% accuracy in recognising ice, 58% of these images showed small enough ice patches on them. The rest of the images was covered by too much ice or showed CO2 ice sublimation in some places.