MRO MARCI Weather Report for the week of
22 December 2014 – 28 December 2014

Martian weather between 22 December 2014 and 28 December 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.

The weather on Mars for the past week showed common characteristics for this time of martian year. The large dust cloud over Aonia and Sirenum, generated from local storms along the seasonal south polar cap, continued to spread westward early in the week before dissipating by week’s end. Short-lived localized dust storms were observed in Chryse, Solis, Sirenum, Cimmeria, Isidis and the Phlegra Montes. High altitude clouds occurred infrequently near Eos Chasma in Valles Marineris and northeast of Hellas. Water-ice clouds associated with the north polar hood continued to be the predominant weather feature over the northern plains with an occasional lee wave cloud, known for their ripple like appearance, were observed on the eastern side of topographic highs (craters, ridges). The southern extent of the polar hood stretched over Acidalia, Deuteronilus, and Utopia. Afternoon conditions in Valles Marineris were hazy. Both rovers, Curiosity in Gale Crater and Opportunity on Meridiani Planum experienced storm-free afternoon skies throughout the week.

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.