Deep learning helps to map Mars and analyze its surface chemistry

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Mount Holyoke College are teaming up to apply recent advances in machine learning, specifically biologically inspired deep learning methods, to analyze large amounts of scientific data from Mars. They are funded by a new four-year, 1.2 million National Science Foundation grant to computer scientist Sridhar Mahadevan, lead principal investigator at UMass Amherst's College of Information and Computer Sciences. His co-investigators are Mario Parente, an expert in analysis of hyperspectral images at UMass Amherst, and Darby Dyar of Mount Holyoke, a specialist in planetary chemistry and geology who serves on the scientific mission team for the Mars rover. As Mahadevan explains, NASA's Curiosity rover, a car-sized robot, has been exploring a crater on Mars since August 2012 and sending back a steady stream of specialized camera images and data on the chemical composition of rocks and dust for analysis. The data range from one-dimensional spectra of rock samples to three-dimensional hyperspectral images of the Martian surface.