MRO MARCI Weather Report for the week of
23 March 2015 – 29 March 2015

Martian weather between 23 March 2015 and 29 March 2015:

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.

Active dust lifting south of Hellas continued during the first few days of the week, contributing suspended particles to a lingering haze that extended across the southern high latitudes. Portions of the high latitude residual haze extended north into Cimmeria and Sirenum, up to around 45 degrees latitude. Multiple frontal dust storms were observed moving south along the Acidalia storms track into Chryse and eastern Valles Marineris. A large regional storm towards the end of the week crossed the equator and expanded into the region extending across Solis, Margaritifer, Aonia, and the Argyre Basin. The pulses of storms in Acidalia and Chryse contributed to thick dust hazes settling in the canyons of Valles Marineris east of Melas Chasma. Localized dust storm were also observed over the course of the week in Amazonis, northwestern Arabia, Deuteronilus, Utopia, near the Elysium Montes, and in Tyrrhena. The increased frequency of dust-lifting events and onset of cross-equatorial activity along the Acidlaia storm-track observed this past week is consistent with the timing noted in previous years. Although global background atmospheric opacities continue to rise with increased storm activity, both rover sites were not directly in the paths of any storms and remain relatively clear and 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.