New transiting planet candidates are identified in 16 months (2009 May-2010 of data from the Kepler spacecraft. Nearly 5000 periodic transit-like signals are vetted against astrophysical and instrumental false positives yielding 1108 viable new planet candidates, bringing the total count up to over 2300. Improved vetting metrics are employed, contributing to higher catalog reliability. Most notable is the noise-weighted robust averaging of multiquarter photo-center offsets derived from difference image analysis that identifies likely background eclipsing binaries. Twenty-two months of photometry are used for the purpose of characterizing each of the candidates. Ephemerides (transit epoch, T 0 , and orbital period, P) are tabulated as well as the products of light curve modeling: reduced radius (R P /R ), reduced semimajor axis (d/R ), and impact parameter (b). The largest fractional increases are seen for the smallest planet candidates (201% for candidates smaller than 2 R ⊕ compared to 53% for candidates larger than 2 R ⊕ ) and those at longer orbital periods (124% for candidates outside of 50 day orbits versus 86% for candidates inside of 50 day orbits). The gains are larger than expected from increasing the observing window from 13 months (Quarters 1-5) to 16 months (Quarters 1-6) even in regions of parameter space where one would have expected the previous catalogs to be complete. Analyses of planet frequencies based on previous catalogs will be affected by such incompleteness. The fraction of all planet candidate host stars with multiple candidates has grown from 17% to 20%, and the paucity of short-period giant planets in multiple systems is still evident. The progression 1The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 204:24 (21pp), 2013 February Batalha et al. toward smaller planets at longer orbital periods with each new catalog release suggests that Earth-size planets in the habitable zone are forthcoming if, indeed, such planets are abundant.

Gale crater, geological context of the rover traverse and samples studiedThe Curiosity rover landing site is located at -4.59° S, 137.44° E). Fig. S1a shows a portion of the THEMIS IR nighttime mosaic of Bradbury Rise. The landing site is marked by a black cross within the landing ellipse. It is located at a distal portion of the alluvial fan stretching below Peace Vallis on the northern rim of Gale crater.Mafic and light-toned igneous float rocks were initially observed by the Curiosity rover close to the Bradbury landing site from sol 1 to 55 in the Hummocky plain unit. After Curiosity left the fluvio-lacustrine deposit of Yellow Knife Bay (sol 55-326), it traversed back across the hummocky unit (Fig. S1b). An increasing number of light-toned rocks dominated by feldspars (porphyritic, felsic coarse-grained, felsic fine-grained) together with three groups of mafic rocks were observed along the traverse from sol 326 to sol 550. The mafic rocks are described in detail in Cousin et al. (2015) 43 and Sautter et al. (2014) 45 . The rocks selected for the present study are summarized in Table S1. Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectrometer (LIBS) spectraChemCam's laser-induced breakdown spectrometer (LIBS) uses a pulsed laser to ablate targets up to ≈ 7 m from the rover. The size of the laser interaction varies with distance, ranging from 350 µm at 1.5 m to 550 µm at 7 m 36 . The light emitted by the ablated plasma spark is collected by the same telescope used to transmit the laser beam, and is analyzed by three spectrometers which record the atomic emission spectrum over the ultraviolet (UV: 240.1-342.2nm), violet (VIO: 382.1-469.3 nm), and visible to near-infrared (VNIR: 474.0-906.5 nm) ranges 21, 22 . The ChemCam LIBS spectra consist of 6144 channels covering the above wavelength range in wavelength with typically several hundred emission peaks covering all of the major elements and many minor and trace elements.A typical ChemCam LIBS observation involves the analysis of multiple locations on the target: common geometries for LIBS observations are square grids (e.g. 3×3, 4×4) and

The Curiosity rover has analyzed abundant light-toned fracture-fill material within the Yellowknife Bay sedimentary deposits. The ChemCam instrument, coupled with Mastcam and ChemCam/Remote Micro Imager images, was able to demonstrate that these fracture fills consist of calcium sulfate veins, many of which appear to be hydrated at a level expected for gypsum and bassanite. Anhydrite is locally present and is found in a location characterized by a nodular texture. An intricate assemblage of veins crosses the sediments, which were likely formed by precipitation from fluids circulating through fractures. The presence of veins throughout the entire~5 m thick Yellowknife Bay sediments suggests that this process occurred well after sedimentation and cementation/lithification of those sediments. The sulfur-rich fluids may have originated in previously precipitated sulfate-rich layers, either before the deposition of the Sheepbed mudstones or from unrelated units such as the sulfates at the base of Mount Sharp. The occurrence of these veins after the episodes of deposition of fluvial sediments at the surface suggests persistent aqueous activity in relatively nonacidic conditions.

Precipitated minerals, including salts, are primary tracers of atmospheric conditions and water chemistry in lake basins. Ongoing in situ exploration by the Curiosity rover of a thick section of Hesperian (~3.3-3.7 Ga) sedimentary rocks within Gale crater has revealed clay-bearing fluvio-lacustrine deposits with sporadic sulfate occurrences primarily as late-stage diagenetic veins and concretions. Here, we report the discovery of bulk enrichments, disseminated in the bedrock, of Ca-sulfate (30-50 wt%) that occur intermittently over ~150 m of stratigraphy and hydrated Mg-sulfate (26-36 wt%) within a thinner section of strata. We use geochemical analysis, primarily from the ChemCam laser-induced breakdown spectrometer (LIBS) and combined with results from other rover instruments, to characterize the enrichments and their lithology. The deposits are consistent with early diagenetic, pre-compaction, salt

Before Perseverance, Jezero crater’s floor was variably hypothesized to have a lacustrine, lava, volcanic airfall, or aeolian origin. SuperCam observations in the first 286 Mars days on Mars revealed a volcanic and intrusive terrain with compositional and density stratification. The dominant lithology along the traverse is basaltic, with plagioclase enrichment in stratigraphically higher locations. Stratigraphically lower, layered rocks are richer in normative pyroxene. The lowest observed unit has the highest inferred density and is olivine-rich with coarse (1.5 millimeters) euhedral, relatively unweathered grains, suggesting a cumulate origin. This is the first martian cumulate and shows similarities to martian meteorites, which also express olivine disequilibrium. Alteration materials including carbonates, sulfates, perchlorates, hydrated silicates, and iron oxides are pervasive but low in abundance, suggesting relatively brief lacustrine conditions. Orbital observations link the Jezero floor lithology to the broader Nili-Syrtis region, suggesting that density-driven compositional stratification is a regional characteristic.