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On terrestrial planets, flow-like deposits of impact melt are commonly found exterior to fresh impact craters. Often, these deposits are asymmetric about the crater rim, and the direction of flow may relate to either the pre-impact topography or the impact azimuth. In this work, we seek to determine the primary mechanism responsible for impact melt emplacement on two very different terrestrial worlds:...
Since July of 2009, The Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectral Mapper (CRISM) onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has periodically obtained pole-to-pole observations (i.e., full MRO orbits) of limb scanned visible/near IR spectra (λ=0.4−4.0 µ m, △λ ∼ 10 nm- Murchie et al., 2007). These CRISM limb observations support the first seasonally and spatially extensive set of Mars 1.27 µm O2(1...
The REMS instrument onboard the Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, has measured ground temperature nearly continuously at hourly intervals for two Mars years. Coverage of the entire diurnal cycle at 1Hz is available every few martian days. We compare these measurements with predictions of surface-atmosphere thermal models to derive the apparent thermal inertia and thermally derived albedo along...
Systematic observations taken by the REMS UV photodiodes on a daily basis throughout the landed Mars Science Laboratory mission provide a highly useful tool for characterizing aerosols above Gale Crater. Radiative transfer modeling is used to model the approximately 1.75 Mars Years of observations taken to date taking into account multiple scattering from aerosols and the extended field of view of...
Since November of 2006, The Mars Color Imager (MARCI) onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has obtained multiple-filter daily global images of Mars centered upon a local time (LT) of 3pm. Ultraviolet imaging bands placed within (260nm) and longward (320nm) of Hartley band (240–300nm) ozone (O3) absorption support retrievals of atmospheric ozone columns, with detection limits (∼1μm-atm) appropriate...
Large-scale planetary waves are diagnosed from an analysis of profiles retrieved from the Thermal Emission Spectrometer aboard the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft during its scientific mapping phase. The analysis is conducted by assimilating thermal profiles and total dust opacity retrievals into a Mars global circulation model. Transient waves are largest throughout the northern hemisphere autumn,...
The SPICAM IR instrument on the Mars Express mission continuously observes the water vapor in the martian atmosphere starting from 2004 in the 1.38-μm spectral band. The water vapor column abundance is retrieved from nadir observations to characterize its spatial, seasonal and interannual variations. A reference set of SPICAM water vapor column abundances (zonally averaged) covering the time period...
Dust aerosol plays a fundamental role in the behavior and evolution of the martian atmosphere. The first five Mars years of Mars Exploration Rover data provide an unprecedented record of the dust load at two sites. This record is useful for characterization of the atmosphere at the sites and as ground truth for orbital observations. Atmospheric extinction optical depths have been derived from solar...
The Navigation Cameras (Navcam) of the Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, have been used to examine two aspects of the planetary boundary layer: vertical dust distribution and dust devil frequency. The vertical distribution of dust may be obtained by using observations of the distant crater rim to derive a line-of-sight optical depth within Gale Crater and comparing this optical depth to column...
We present for the first time an assimilation of Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) water vapour column data into a Mars global climate model (MGCM). We discuss the seasonal cycle of water vapour, the processes responsible for the observed water vapour distribution, and the cross-hemispheric water transport. The assimilation scheme is shown to be robust in producing consistent reanalyses, and the...
We describe a new retrieval algorithm that accounts for the presence of the systematic background radiance error in the infrared spectra collected by the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES). The algorithm is used to retrieve dust and water ice cloud opacities from the nighttime TES nadir spectra. Nighttime dust opacities are systematically higher than the day opacities by...
Visible and near-IR Meinel band emissions originate from excited OH in the terrestrial upper atmosphere (Meinel, I.A.B. [1950]. Astrophys. J. 111, 555. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/145296), and have recently been detected in the Venus nightside upper mesosphere (Piccioni, G. et al. [2008]. Astron. Astrophys. 483, L29–L33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:200809761). Meinel band observations support...
Mars Climate Sounder (MCS) nadir oriented thermal infrared and solar channel measurements are compared with Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) measurements across multiple Mars years. Thermal infrared measurements were compared by convolving the TES data using the MCS spectral band passes. The MCS solar channel measurements were calibrated using Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars...
Baroclinic waves figure prominently in the dynamics of the northern hemisphere of Mars, and extensive observations by the Viking Landers and two atmospheric sounders on Mars Global Surveyor have revealed many of their basic properties. However, previous investigations considered these data sets individually, so that their cumulative value is not fully appreciated. We have re-examined these data to...
The interval from L s =330° in Mars Year (MY) 26 until L s =84° in MY 27 has been used to compare and validate measurements from the Mars Global Surveyor Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) and the Mars Express Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS). We studied differences between atmospheric temperatures observed by the two instruments. The best agreement between atmospheric temperatures...
We report on new retrievals of water vapor column abundances from the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) data. The new retrievals are from the TES nadir data taken above the ‘cold’ surface areas in the North polar region (T surf <220K, including seasonal frost and permanent ice cap) during spring and summer seasons, where retrievals were not performed initially...
Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) visible (solarband bolometer) and thermal infrared (IR) spectral limb observations from the Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) support quantitative profile retrievals for dust opacity and particle sizes during the 2001 global dust event on Mars. The current analysis considers the behavior of dust lifted to altitudes above 30km during the course of this storm; in terms of...
Atmospheric water vapor abundances in Mars’ north polar region (NPR, from 60° to 90°N) are mapped as function of latitude and longitude for spring and summer seasons, and their spatial, seasonal, and interannual variability is discussed. Water vapor data are from Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) and the Viking Orbiter (VO) Mars Atmospheric Water Detector (MAWD). The data...
We use infrared images obtained by the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) instrument on-board Mars Odyssey to retrieve the optical depth of dust and water ice aerosols over more than 3.5 martian years between February 2002 (MY 25, Ls=330°) and December 2008 (MY 29, Ls=183°). These data provide an important bridge between earlier TES observations and recent observations from Mars Express and...
The Mars Global Surveyor Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) instrument has returned over 200 million thermal infrared spectra of Mars taken between March 1999 and August 2004. This represents one of the most complete records of spatial and temporal changes of the martian atmosphere ever recorded by an orbiting spacecraft. Previous reports of the standard TES retrieval of aerosol optical depth have...
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