Tag Archives: atmosphere

MARCI weather report: March 9-15, 2015

Local storm activity along the Acidalia storm track picked up in earnest this past week. One large local storm that developed in the Acidalia-Chryse- Kasei region, propagated southward along the Acidalia storm-track through Lunae Planum and Xanthe and crossed into … Continue reading

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MARCI weather report: March 2-8, 2015

Over the past week on Mars, short-lived local dust storms were spotted over Amazonis, Deuteronilus, Utopia, and the Phlegra Montes. By mid-week, a transient dust storm was observed along the Acidalia storm track over Xanthe. Such storm activity is a … Continue reading

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MARCI weather report: February 23-March 1, 2015

Local scale dust storm activity in the northern extratropics continued during the past week on Mars. Dust-lifting was noted along the edge of the north polar hood from Alba Patera to Deuteronilus to Phlegra Montes, as well as further south … Continue reading

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MARCI weather report: February 16-22, 2015

Dust-lifting was observed at the edge of the north polar hood in Tempe, north of Alba Patera, and in Deuteronilus. A local dust storm passed through Amazonis northwest of Olympus Mons. The southern hemisphere was notably storm-free and the Argyre … Continue reading

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MAVEN: First deep-dip campaign completed

The MAVEN spacecraft has completed the first of five deep-dip maneuvers designed to gather measurements closer to the lower end of the Martian upper atmosphere. “During normal science mapping, we make measurements between an altitude of about 150 km and … Continue reading

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MARCI weather report: February 9-15, 2015

Weather activity continued to pick up for the past week on Mars. At the start of last week, local dust storms were observed in Amazonis and northern Alba Patera. A very small dust lifting event was observed in Chryse the … Continue reading

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MAVEN: Collecting data in deep-dip maneuver

MAVEN instruments all collecting data as expected during deep-dip. The initial MAVEN deep-dip campaign continues to go well, as the NASA ‪#‎Mars‬ orbiter maintains its targeted atmospheric density corridor between 2.0 – 3.5 kg/km³. All of the MAVEN science instruments … Continue reading

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Mysterious plumes in Mars atmosphere

Plumes seen reaching high above the surface of Mars are causing a stir among scientists studying the atmosphere on the Red Planet. On two separate occasions in March and April 2012, amateur astronomers reported definite plume-like features developing on the … Continue reading

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MAVEN: Second ‘walk-in’ maneuver succeeds

The second #MAVEN deep-dip maneuver was executed yesterday (Feb. 11, 2015), with a delta-v (∆V) of 0.6 m/sec., which lowered the periapsis of the spacecraft by another 4 km. The first maneuver was carried out on Tuesday (Feb. 10) and … Continue reading

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MAVEN: First ‘walk-in’ maneuver successful

On February 10, MAVEN carried out its first walk-in maneuver of the current “deep-dip” campaign. This lowered the periapsis of the MAVEN spacecraft about 20 km to an altitude of about 133 km. The campaign will continue tomorrow with another … Continue reading

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