McMurdo Dry Valleys (Taylor/Wright valleys)
Unreviewed draft
This page was built from a teammate-supplied list. The text is teammate-written, unreviewed. Sources pending.
Summary
not provided
Location
- Country
- Antarctica
- Coordinates
- -77.62, 162.90
- Elevation (m)
- 300
- Year first used as an analog
- not provided
Terrain and geology
not provided
Climate
not provided
Parameters matched
not provided
Why it is an analog
Coldest, driest ice-free ground on Earth; key cold-trap stand-in.
Key differences: where the analogy breaks down
Sun climbs to ~36° in summer (lunar pole <2°); lakes and glaciers; air.
Experiments done
Cold-desert soil and ice studies; rover and drill tests; polar-ops and isolation research by NASA and NSF teams.
Experiments proposed
Cold-trap ice prospecting with neutron spectrometers; extreme-cold battery/thermal tests; polar-night operations; rover autonomy in low sun.
How to adjust it
Insulated shadow enclosures to approach cold-trap temps; simulant patches for regolith mechanics.
Access
not provided
Hazards
not provided
Sources
Sources pending (no sources in CSV).
v1 score, percentile and overlap flag
A descriptive lookup of scores v1 already stored. It is not a test, and a high percentile here does not show that this is a good analog.
v1 used this site
Unknown. The nearest v1 site, "mcmurdo dry valleys", is about 25.4 km away, and the files cannot say whether v1 meant the same place.
| Score view | Result | Percentile | Score | Distance to tile (km) | Overlap flag |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Connecting Ridge C1, Base | No land tileno land tile within the match radius | not provided | not provided | not provided | not provided |
| Connecting Ridge C1, Landing and mobility | No land tileno land tile within the match radius | not provided | not provided | not provided | not provided |
| Connecting Ridge C1, Power and night | No land tileno land tile within the match radius | not provided | not provided | not provided | not provided |
| Shackleton rim, Base | No land tileno land tile within the match radius | not provided | not provided | not provided | not provided |
| Shackleton rim, Landing and mobility | No land tileno land tile within the match radius | not provided | not provided | not provided | not provided |
| Shackleton rim, Power and night | No land tileno land tile within the match radius | not provided | not provided | not provided | not provided |
Overlap flag: whether the tile used for the score is one v1 flagged as stable in its top group across the Monte Carlo runs.
What these scores can and cannot tell you
- This is a lookup of scores v1 already stored. It is descriptive and is not a test of the method.
- A site is matched to the best-scoring tile that passed the gates within the match radius. A different radius would give different numbers.
- Tiles are large compared with most sites, so a score describes the surrounding area, not the site itself.
- Scores exist only for tiles that passed the land-cover and data gates. A gated-out or unscored site has no score, which says nothing about how good an analog it is.
- Percentile is the share of scored tiles in that view with a lower score.
- The Moon score is effectively terrain only. Mars is a low-confidence secondary result.
- v1 failed its negative controls, so a high percentile here does not show that a site is a good analog.
- The ranking is not checked against independent data. Gravity, air, dust and radiation are not scored.
- Sites are compared with views of their own body only.
- Match radius: 20 km, the radius v1 used.