A Sydney student just drew the first soil map of Mars — all 92% of it

Daniel Irving, a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney, has done for Mars what soil scientists spent a century doing for Earth: sorted its ground into kinds. Working from orbital observations, he and his colleagues classified nearly 800 million locations into 10 major realms, 100 groupings and 2,000 detailed soil forms, covering 92% of the planet, and published the work in the journal Catena. One rare soil stood out for holding water well and sitting close to neutral acidity — the sort of ground a future greenhouse crew would want to find. The map gives mission planners a shared language for choosing landing sites, and a shortlist of places worth a closer look.

SDG 9 · Industry, innovation and infrastructure — Mechanism: tech innovation