Tag Archives: atmosphere

MAVEN: ‘Stolen’ electrons cause unusual Mars aurora

Auroras appear on Earth as ghostly displays of colorful light in the night sky, usually near the poles. Our rocky neighbor Mars has auroras too, and NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft just found a new type of Martian aurora that occurs over … Continue reading

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Mars ‘storm chasers’ seek dusty secrets

Storm chasing takes luck and patience on Earth — and even more so on Mars. For scientists watching the Red Planet from data gathered by NASA’s orbiters, the past month has been a windfall. “Global” dust storms, where a runaway … Continue reading

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MAVEN: Webinar July 25 on restoring the martian atmosphere

Many people have suggested that future Mars colonists may want to thicken the Martian atmosphere and make it breathable for long-term habitation of the Red Planet. Join MAVEN Co-Investigator Dr. Robert Lillis of the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory to … Continue reading

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Radar shows Mars atmosphere behaves as a single system

New research using a decade of data from ESA’s Mars Express has found clear signs of the complex martian atmosphere acting as a single, interconnected system, with processes occurring at low and mid levels significantly affecting those seen higher up. … Continue reading

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MARCI weather report, July 9-15, 2018

Dusty conditions across Mars as the planet-encircling dust event dragged on for another week. Local-scale dust lifting was spotted over Solis-Sinai and along the developing north polar hood. Each afternoon, water-ice gravity wave (a.k.a. lee wave) clouds trailed from the … Continue reading

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MARCI weather report, July 2-8, 2018

Dusty conditions continued around the red planet this past week, as the planet-encircling dust event was still ongoing. The colossal dust cloud was still prevalent between the south polar ice cap and the north polar hood. Solis-Sinai and on occasion, … Continue reading

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MARCI weather report, June 25-July 1, 2018

For the past week on Mars, the planet-encircling dust event persisted across all hemispheres. Though, active dust-lifting was not occurring everywhere across the planet, regional lifting centers in Solis-Sinai, Hellas, and Elysium continued to sustain a planet-encircling dust cloud of … Continue reading

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Mars dust storm may lead to new weather discoveries

Mars is experiencing an estimated 15.8-million–square-mile dust storm, roughly the size of North and South America. This storm may not be good news for the NASA solar-powered Opportunity rover, but one Penn State professor sees this as a chance to … Continue reading

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MARCI weather report, June 18-24, 2018

The planet-encircling dust event endured across Mars last week. As the week progressed, storm activity expanded over Solis-Sinai, Aonia, and Sirenum. Dusty conditions also continued from Isidis to Olympus and from Argyre to western Sirenum. Storm activity south of Hellas, … Continue reading

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MARCI weather report, June 11-17, 2018

The massive dust storm reported in the previous update, persisted over many regions of Mars last week. At the beginning of the week, a local-scale dust storm was spotted southwest of Gale Crater. Active lifting associated with the major storm … Continue reading

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