MRO MARCI Weather Report for the week of
24 November 2014 – 30 November 2014

Martian weather between 24 November 2014 and 30 November 2014:

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.

With the exception of the continued dusty atmospheric conditions across most of the planet, weather conditions were fairly typical of the late northern autumn/southern spring  season on the red planet. Water-ice and dust clouds continued to propagate eastward near the southernmost extent of the north polar hood. Cloud ripples, scientifically known as lee waves were observed over the northern plains trailing eastward behind areas of high topographic relief, such as crater rims and ridges. Cloud streaks, composed of mostly water ice, were observed between southeastern Valles Marineris and northwestern Argyre throughout the week. These annually occurring cloud streaks, reached altitudes of 40-50 km above the surface, a region in the atmosphere known as the mesosphere. Conditions above the Tharsis Montes were cloud-free with the exception of water-ice clouds over the southernmost volcano (Arsia Mons). Local dust storms swept north from the edge of the seasonal south polar cap as it receded past 72° south latitude. The regions of Cimmeria and Amazonis also experienced some local dust storm activity. The Opportunity rover in Meridiani  and the Curiosity rover in Gale Crater both continued to experience seasonally elevated dust levels in the atmosphere compared to previous martian years, despite that, skies over both sites continued to remain storm-free.

This week’s MARCI “movie” can be downloaded HERE (9.1 MB .mov file).

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 Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity (on Meridiani Planum), and the Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity (in Gale 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.