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As amazing as it is to send a space camera, rover or lander to a planet millions of miles away, it is only one of the first parts of a robotic science mission.

What happens after the data begins pouring back for weeks, months and sometimes years and decades?

After it is pulled in by the Deep Space Network of antennae on Earth, most spacecraft data now goes to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and soon after to the Planetary Data System, a virtual public library of space imagery on the Web (http://pds.nasa.gov/). Anyone with Web access can view and use the information.

Many of the planetary scientists analyzing the information sent back from space cameras and other imagers working in non-visible parts of the spectrum are, essentially, geologists. They're looking at the rocks, soil and formations of other planets, asking many of the same questions they would on Earth. What are they made of? How old are they? How did they get where they are?

But, except for meteorites and the moon rocks brought back by Apollo astronauts, they work remotely, looking at photographs and chemical, structural or other analyses of the objects.

Shane Byrne, a 31-year-old University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory researcher from Ireland, pores over dark layers deposited in Martian polar ice. The layers are detailed in a photo from the UA's High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment. The HiRISE camera is circling Mars from pole to pole aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, snapping detailed pictures as the planet revolves far below.

Byrne is one of many UA scientists who interpret the mountains of data sent back to Earth by space instruments and imagers. He's trying to learn more about Mars' past by studying the horizontal layering exposed in clifflike structures seen in HiRiSE images.

Of particular interest to Byrne are the expanding pits in the carbon dioxide ice layer on Mars' south pole. While Mars geology is ancient, on a scale measured in hundreds of millions of years, Byrne says the pits have changed dramatically in a few years. "Every Martian year (nearly twice as long as an Earth year), their walls recede a couple of meters," he says.

He suspects the pits' origins date back to a massive planet-wide dust storm 36 years ago.

The first Mars orbiter, Mariner 9, arrived at Mars in 1971 with the best imaging equipment, only to find the planet engulfed in a dust storm that obscured everything on the red planet's surface.

Byrne and others think that when that dust settled it was captured in the ice that forms as each pole goes into dark winter, and it paved the way for surface change each successive summer.

Because CO2 ice is so volatile, it sublimates — changes from a solid into a gas — when heated by sunlight. Dark ice with embedded dust absorbs more heat than the surrounding light-colored ice, hastening the growth of the pits.

By monitoring the pits' growth using photos from HiRISE, Byrne is writing a computer program to model sublimation.

Because Mars' climate has fewer variables — neither oceans nor human influences — he says it's a much simpler climate than Earth's. That makes it easier to isolate influences causing changes — and may help scientists isolate influences causing changes on Earth.

Information sent back from instruments in space may not be used immediately, nor only for the reasons that justified the mission. Sometimes data is used decades after it's gathered. The detailed black-and-white moon photographs taken by Apollo astronauts and lunar orbiters in the 1960s and 1970s are still used, and will undoubtedly see more use with talk of the return of manned missions.

"We get a lot of insight from studying other worlds," says Mark Sykes, director of the Tucson-based Planetary Science Institute. For example, he says, studying Venus' atmosphere and chemistry led to an understanding of Earth's ozone hole.

"We're taking the physics developed on Earth … to the racetrack of the solar system," Sykes says.

The duration of a mission is hardly the duration of the research and analysis.

Arizona State University's Steve Ruff, the scientist in charge of the Mini-Thermal Emission Spectrometer cameras on the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, says the main goal of the primary mission is to simply collect as much data as possible, using brief analysis of the data to determine how best to direct the mission.

In some ways, says Ruff, scientists look forward to instruments shutting down for the winter so they can understand the data that's been piling up.

"It's like squirrels collecting acorns. We haven't had a chance to really scrutinize the data," Ruff says.

There are more spacecraft, more and higher-resolution instruments, and faster data links than ever before, all adding to the pile of data coming back to Earth. It's like going from a dial-up modem to broadband Internet service.

"The data coming in from Mars is saturating the system," says Robert Strom, a professor emeritus who joined the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in 1963. "It boggles the mind."

The answer, say UA lunar laboratory director Michael Drake and the Planetary Science Institute's Sykes, is providing prompt and widespread access to data from missions. They praise the non-proprietary Planetary Data System approach, sharing the huge database of information gathered from missions past and present.

"There's an awful lot of smart people out there," says Drake. "And they might not all be on the missions."