Mars

Diurnal and Seasonal Mapping of Martian Ices with EMIRS

By Keith Cowing
Press Release
astro-ph.EP
May 28, 2023
Filed under , ,
Diurnal and Seasonal Mapping of Martian Ices with EMIRS
Seasonal variations of the latitudinal median extent of the Martian polar caps from EMM/EMIRS retrievals for diurnally stable surface ice. Only maps with a high-quality flag have been considered here. The red dotted line shows the limits of the polar caps derived from the Mars Planetary Climate Model (PCM) with a nominal dust scenario (Forget et al., 1999; Navarro et al., 2014), the green and violet dashed lines show the limits of the NPC derived from MOC and OMEGA observations respectively acquired during MY 24-26 (Benson & James, 2005) and MY 27-28 (App´er´e et al., 2011), and the yellow dotted lines show the limits of the SPC during its MY 27 recession derived from OMEGA observations (Schmidt et al., 2010). — astro-ph.EP

Condensation and sublimation of ices at the surface of the planet is a key part of both the Martian H2O and CO2 cycles, either from a seasonal or diurnal aspect.

While most of the ice is located within the polar caps, surface frost is known to be formed during nighttime down to equatorial latitudes.

Here, we use data from the Emirates Mars Infrared Spectrometer (EMIRS) onboard the Emirates Mars Mission (EMM) to monitor the diurnal and seasonal evolution of the ices at the surface of Mars over almost one Martian year. The unique local time coverage provided by the instrument allows us to observe the apparition of equatorial CO2 frost in the second half of the Martian night around the equinoxes, to its sublimation at sunrise.

Aurélien Stcherbinine, Christopher S. Edwards, Michael D. Smith, Michael J. Wolff, Christopher Haberle, Eman Al Tunaiji, Nathan M. Smith, Kezman Saboi, Saadat Anwar, Lucas Lange, Philip R. Christensen

Comments: Submitted to Geophysical Research Letters
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:2303.08328 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2303.08328v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2303.08328
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Submission history
From: Aurélien Stcherbinine
[v1] Wed, 15 Mar 2023 02:30:49 UTC (6,654 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.08328

Astrobiology, Mars,

Keith Cowing

Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na’Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he/him) 🖖🏻

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