MRO MARCI Weather Report for the week of
20 February 2017 – 26 February 2017

Martian weather between 20 February 2017 and 26 February 2017:

The MARCI acquires a global view of the red planet and its weather patterns every day. Please click and play the movie (.mp4 file) to see how the weather on Mars changed during this time.

A major dust storm system traveled down the Acidalia storm-track this past week on Mars. Two dust storms observed at the beginning of the week, quickly merged, forming a regional dust storm. The regional dust storm was further fed by subsequent dust lifting over Acidalia. At the middle of the week, the storm swept east and west affecting Lunae Planum and western Arabia. By the following sol, a regional scale dust storm also cropped up over the Solis-Sinai region. Furthermore, this storm merged with the major storm and propagated southwest over Aonia and eastern Daedalia. The eastern extents of the major storm stretched over Argyre and western Noachis as well. Local-scale dust lifting activity was present as well, as storms were spotted over the plains of Amazonis and the southern slopes of Arsia Mons, the southernmost volcano of the Tharsis Montes. Atmospheric conditions that permitted water-ice clouds to form over some of the Tharsis Montes changed throughout the week. The dust lofted by the storm raised atmospheric temperatures, reducing the presence of water-ice clouds in the tropics. The Opportunity rover site did experience elevated atmospheric dust levels due to storm activity to the west.

This week’s MARCI “movie” can be downloaded HERE (8.9 MB .mp4 file).

This week’s MARCI “movie” can be downloaded HERE (8.9 MB .mov file).

Earlier Mars Weather Reports are available HERE.

About the Movie:
The movie (a .mp4 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 movie.

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