It’s a fine
day on Mars in this view from orbit by NASA spacecraft.
Views like
this recorded by NASA’s Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are vital
not just for astronomers studying Martian weather, but for probes exploring the
red planet’s surface too.
Just like
Florida residents can expect hurricane season to begin at roughly the same time
each year on Earth, so too can NASA’s Mars
rovers Spirit and Opportunty, and their fledgling cousin the Phoenix
Mars Lander, expect repeating patterns at their respective landing sites.
The rovers are rolling across the equatorial regions of Mars while Phoenix is
perched stationary in the Martian arctic.
On Mars,
weather cloud patterns and dust storms tend to repeat each year, with scientists
chronicling their appearance since 1999 using orbiting spacecraft.
Today just
happens to be the summer solstice on Mars, a day when the sun reaches its
northernmost point in the northern hemisphere. Earth’s summer solstice was June
21.
According
to the Canadian-built weather station aboard the Phoenix lander, which is
scooping and digging
Mars dirt in the red planet’s northern regions, summer in the Martian
arctic means an ever-present sun low on the horizon with temperatures ranging
between minus 20 and minus 120 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 30 to minus 85 degrees
Celsius).
-- Tariq Malik
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
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