China plans to complete a next-generation geological map of Mars by the end of 2028, aiming to reconstruct the history of water on the Red Planet and introduce a Chinese version of the Martian geological time system.
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Chinese Academician of Sciences and chief scientist of the Tianwen-3 Mars sample return mission, Hou Zengqian, revealed the plan at a symposium at the Institute of Geology under the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences.
The Zhurong rover, which China landed on Mars in 2021 as part of the Tianwen-1 mission, has provided new clues about the planet's water history, including the presence of a vast ancient ocean some 3.5 billion years ago and a brief flood that likely occurred some 1.6 billion years ago.
The findings help complete the body of evidence regarding the evolution of the ancient Martian climate and will be incorporated into the new map. Based on this, the new map will incorporate a Chinese-developed system for dividing Mars' geologic time.
Currently, the geological time divisions of Mars include the Noachian, Hesperian, and Amazonian periods, which are determined based on visible crater density, not absolute dating. China aims to make the new system an international consensus, Hou said.
The project will primarily utilize data from Tianwen-1, supplemented by data from Mars probes from the United States and the European Space Agency (ESA), enabling the integration of orbital and ground-based data. By combining imagery, spectra, radar, gravity, and magnetic readings, a global database will be compiled that links the planet's various physical fields.
Artificial intelligence (AI) will be at the heart of data interpretation. The expertise of geologists will be embedded in large models through rule engines to ensure explainability of the results, while multiscale attention techniques will help shape progressive feature extraction, from local mineral identification to global tectonic unit subdivision.
The project, targeted for completion by the end of 2028, includes a 1:5 million-scale geological map of Mars, a 1:50,000-scale map of the landing area, and a series of thematic atlases. The project will also produce the world's first intelligent geological map of Mars and provide a template for future mapping of the Moon, Venus, and asteroids.
Director of the Institute of Geology of the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Yang Zhiming, emphasized that geological mapping has been one of the main tasks of the institute for 70 years.
Over that period, the institute's mapping work has expanded from regional and national maps to include the Moon and now Mars. He said the work has provided a scientific foundation for China's planetary exploration program, determining where to go, what to explore.
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