Time-series glacier change analysis that closely linked to global climate patterns have drawn increasing attention. However, few studies focused on regional glacier mapping with high spatial resolution and accuracy. This study combined lightweight DeeplabV3+ model and activation threshold optimization strategy for regional glacier mapping and change analysis in the Gangshika region of Qilian Mountain, mainly using high-resolution satellite images from 2012 to 2023. For extraction of glaciers with different scales, multi-scale contextual information was represented through Atrous Spatial Pyramid Pooling module. The predicted probability maps were first obtained. And the optimized activation thresholds were selected to determine which areas were glaciers. The accuracies of extracted glacier boundaries from 2012 to 2023 fluctuated between 82% and 96%, with an averaged value of 93%. Considering that the quality of images in 2012–2014 and corresponding glacier boundary accuracy were not very good, the change analysis was just conducted from 2015 to 2023. As of 2023, the Gangshika region hosts 45 glaciers, with a total area of 20.652 km² and a total perimeter of 148.8 km. From 2015 to 2023, they reduce by 9.2% and 1.7% respectively. Glaciers were predominantly concentrated in medium elevation zones (4200-4500 meters) with a proportion of 46.6% and largest ablation rate of 1.68% between 2021 and 2023. The thickness and ice reserves were calculated by empirical formula. From 2015 to 2023, the Gangshika glaciers showed reduction rates in thickness and ice reserves by 1.15% and 12.5% respectively.

Evidence from instruments in Mars orbit and from the Zhurong rover suggests that oceans may have existed in the northern plains of Mars. Sedimentary stratification is a key indicator for verifying the historical presence of oceans on the Martian surface. However, there is still disagreement about the formation mechanism of sedimentary stratification at the Zhurong rover landing site. In this study, three-dimensional point clouds are generated from images taken by the Zhurong rover's navigation stereo camera. These point clouds are used to perform quantitative measurements and statistical analyses of the cross-bedding angles in sediments in rocks, and these angles are then compared with sedimentary bedding angles from various terrestrial environments to infer the dynamic sedimentary processes in the Zhurong landing area. The dip angles of the rocks at the Zhurong landing site on Mars range from 18.5° to 51.5°, with a median of 33.4°. The dip angles of the rocks in Gale Crater range from 14.7° to 41.7°, with a median of 31.5°. On Earth, the dip angles of strata in humid regions range from 7.4° to 38.4°, with a median of 27°, whereas in arid regions, the dip angles of strata range from 7.6° to 38°, with a median of 22.6°. These dip ranges indicate that the cross-bedding angles of sedimentary rocks on the Martian surface are similar to those of coastal aeolian cross-bedding on Earth, which indicate that their formation mechanism was comparable to the formation mechanism of coastal dunes. The sedimentary rocks at the Zhurong landing site were concluded to have formed in a nearshore marine depositional environment. This study represents the first statistical analysis of critical information on cross-bedding in Martian surface rocks compared with that in similar terrestrial environments, providing evidence from a sedimentary dynamics perspective for the depositional evolution of the Martian Utopia Planitia and indicating the historical presence of an ancient ocean in this region.

Alluvial fans and deltas in Gale crater preserve important records of sediment transport from crater-rim and wall catchments to depositional environments on the crater floor. This study investigates their spatial distribution, morphology, source-to-sink relationships, surface texture, and volume using an integrated orbital remote-sensing framework. Deposit boundaries and channel remnants were mapped from the 5 m/pixel Context Camera (CTX) global mosaic, while elevation, slope, drainage networks, catchment boundaries, and volume estimates were derived from the 200 m MOLA–HRSC blended digital elevation model. A total of 12 alluvial fans and three deltas were identified. Most deposits are concentrated along the northwestern crater margin, whereas the southern crater floor is dominated by a broad, low-gradient fan. Comparisons among representative systems show that catchment area alone cannot explain preserved deposit size; sediment-routing efficiency, topographic confinement, accommodation space, depositional setting, and post-depositional modification are also important controls. Volume estimates differ substantially between planar basal-surface fitting and parallel-profile reconstruction, indicating strong method dependence. These results provide a consistent basis for comparing Gale crater depositional systems and demonstrate that preserved fan and delta morphology reflects combined source, transport, depositional, and preservation processes.

The Lunar Soil Volatile Measuring Instrument, a key payload of the Chang’e-7 mission, employs a quadrupole mass spectrometer (QMS) to directly analyze gases released from lunar regolith at different temperatures, aiming to determine the types and abundances of volatiles. However, the evolved gases are often complex mixtures, and their direct introduction into the mass spectrometer may compromise the measurement accuracy due to interactions among different species. To investigate the interference from gases on volatile quantification, systematic experiments were performed with one or two gases out of H₂, He, N₂, Ar, CO₂, and CO on a flight-like laboratory unit of the payload. Results show that the QMS exhibited excellent reproducibility and linear response (R² > 0.99) for all pure gases tested. Furthermore, the sensitivity of gases varied in mixtures and was jointly influenced by gas composition and volume fraction. For instance, compared with the sensitivity values obtained in pure gas measurements, the sensitivity of CO was slightly enhanced when mixed with Ar but was reduced when mixed with H₂ or He. A significant sensitivity enhancement of up to 4.6 folds was observed for H₂ when mixed with He. However, as its fraction increased, the sensitivity of a component in a binary mixture exhibited a decreasing deviation and was almost constant when its fraction was above 60%. Based on these findings, we developed a sensitivity correction method which employs an iterative algorithm to obtain more accurate partial pressures calculated from the gas measurement signals. Applications of the method on H₂–He mixtures and a pre-mixed CO–N₂ standard gas demonstrated that the relative errors of calculated pressures can be reduced to within ±10%. This method would significantly improve the accuracy of gas pressure calculated from in situ volatile measurement data and also provides a valuable reference for similar QMSs.