MRO MARCI Weather Report for the week of
26 January 2009 – 1 February 2009

Martian weather between 26 January 2009 and 1 February 2009:

The MARCI acquires a global view of the red planet and its weather patterns every day. Please click and play the Quicktime movie (.mov file) to see how the weather on Mars changed during this time.

Weather this past week on Mars remained typical for this time of year. As the northern polar hood continued to form, water ice clouds persisted at northern mid-latitudes, particularly over Alba Patera and extending east over Tempe and Acidalia. Dust storm activity also occurred along the northern hood edge, with Utopia experiencing increased activity early in the week. A short-lived local dust storm occurred northwest of Olympus Mons on the 27th. In the southern hemisphere, Hellas remained dusty throughout the week, and water ice clouds formed along the edge of the southern polar cap as it continues to recede due to increasing spring temperatures. Water ice clouds persisted over the Tharsis Montes and in the Xanthe Terra/Chryse Planitia region, the latter resulting in partly cloudy skies over MER B. Skies over MER A on the other hand were relatively clear.

Earlier Mars Weather Reports are available HERE.

About the Quicktime Movie:
The movie (a .mov file that you can click and play, above) was generated from images obtained by the Mars Color Imager (MARCI) onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). During a nominal operational week, a total of about 273 MARCI images, taken in three of the camera’s seven color filter bands (420, 550, and 600 nanometer wavelengths), are map projected and mosaiced together to produce seven false-color daily global maps. These maps are then projected onto a sphere with north at the top and east to the right and with the mid-afternoon vantage point of an observer in the orbital plane (the imaginary plane that the planet draws out as it circles the Sun). Black areas in the movie are the result of data drops or high angle roll maneuvers by the spacecraft that limit the camera’s view of the planet. Equally-spaced blurry areas that run from south-to-north (bottom-to-top) result from the high off-nadir viewing geometry, a product of the spacecraft’s low-orbit, 250 km x 316 km (155 miles x 196 miles). The movie is rendered at a lower resolution than the intrinsic 1–2 km nadir resolution that the MARCI provides, so that it is practical to view and share via the Internet. The small white circles on these images of Mars indicate the locations of the two Mars Exploration Rovers, Opportunity (on Meridiani Planum) and Spirit (in Gusev Crater). Other locations on Mars referenced in the weather report can be found by referring to the map below. Note that the still image of Mars depicted at the top of this page is a single frame from the Quicktime movie.

Malin Space Science Systems, Inc., San Diego, California, U.S.A.