What is the atmosphere on Mars and the temperature. The temperature on Mars is a cold mystery. Dust storms and tornadoes

atmospheric composition

The atmosphere of Mars is more rarefied than the air shell of the Earth, and 95% consists of carbon dioxide, about 4% is nitrogen and argon. Oxygen and water vapor in the Martian atmosphere is less than 1%. The average atmospheric pressure at the surface is 160 times less than at the Earth's surface.

The mass of the atmosphere during the year varies greatly due to condensation in winter and evaporation in summer, large volumes of carbon dioxide at the poles, in the polar caps.

Cloud cover and precipitation

There is very little water vapor in the Martian atmosphere, but at low pressure and temperature, it is in a state close to saturation, and often collects in clouds. Martian clouds are rather inexpressive compared to those on Earth.

Temperature

The average temperature on Mars is much lower than on Earth - about -40°C. Under the most favorable conditions in the summer in the daytime half of the planet, the air warms up to 20 ° C - a completely acceptable temperature for the inhabitants of the Earth. But on winter nights, frost can reach up to -125°С. At winter temperatures, even carbon dioxide freezes, turning into dry ice. Such sharp temperature drops are caused by the fact that the rarefied atmosphere of Mars is not able to retain heat for a long time. As a result of numerous measurements of temperatures at various points on the surface of Mars, it turns out that during the day at the equator the temperature can reach up to + 27 ° C, but by morning it drops to -50 ° C.

There are also temperature oases on Mars, in the areas of the "lake" Phoenix (Sun Plateau) and the land of Noah, the temperature difference is from -53 ° C to + 22 ° C in summer and from -103 ° C to -43 ° C in winter. Thus, Mars is a very cold world, but the climate there is not much harsher than in Antarctica. When the first photographs of the surface of Mars taken by the Viking were transmitted to Earth, scientists were very surprised to see that the Martian sky was not black, as expected, but pink. It turned out that the dust hanging in the air absorbs 40% of the incoming sunlight, creating a color effect.

Dust storms and tornadoes

Winds are one of the manifestations of temperature difference. Strong winds often blow over the surface of the planet, the speed of which reaches 100 m/s. Low gravity allows even rarefied air currents to raise huge clouds of dust. Sometimes quite vast areas on Mars are covered by grandiose dust storms. Most often they occur near the polar caps. A global dust storm on Mars prevented photographing the surface from the Mariner 9 probe. It raged from September to January 1972, raising about a billion tons of dust into the atmosphere at an altitude of more than 10 km. Dust storms most often occur during periods of great opposition, when summer in the southern hemisphere coincides with the passage of Mars through perihelion.

Dust devils are another example of temperature-related processes on Mars. Such tornadoes are very frequent manifestations on Mars. They raise dust into the atmosphere and arise due to temperature differences. Reason: during the day, the surface of Mars heats up enough (sometimes to positive temperatures), but at a height of up to 2 meters from the surface, the atmosphere remains just as cold. Such a drop causes instability, raising dust into the air - as a result, dust devils are formed.

Seasons

At the moment it is known that of all the planets of the solar system, Mars is the most similar to the Earth. The axis of rotation of Mars is inclined to its orbital plane by approximately 23.9 °, which is comparable to the tilt of the earth's axis, which is 23.4 °, and the Martian day practically coincides with the earth's - which is why, like on Earth, the seasons change. Seasonal changes are most pronounced in the polar regions. In winter, the polar caps occupy a significant area. The boundary of the northern polar cap can move away from the pole by a third of the distance to the equator, and the boundary of the southern cap overcomes half this distance. This difference is caused by the fact that in the northern hemisphere winter occurs when Mars passes through the perihelion of its orbit, and in the southern hemisphere when it passes through aphelion. Because of this, winters in the southern hemisphere are colder than in the northern. And the duration of each of the four Martian seasons varies depending on its distance from the Sun. Therefore, in the Martian northern hemisphere, winters are short and relatively "moderate", and summers are long, but cool. In the south, on the contrary, summers are short and relatively warm, and winters are long and cold.

With the onset of spring, the polar cap begins to “shrink”, leaving behind gradually disappearing islands of ice. At the same time, a so-called wave of darkening propagates from the poles to the equator. Modern theories explain it by the fact that spring winds carry large masses of soil along the meridians with different reflective properties.

Apparently, none of the caps disappear completely. Before the start of exploration of Mars with the help of interplanetary probes, it was assumed that its polar regions were covered with frozen water. More accurate modern ground and space measurements have also found frozen carbon dioxide in the composition of Martian ice. In summer, it evaporates and enters the atmosphere. The winds carry it to the opposite polar cap, where it freezes again. This cycle of carbon dioxide and the different sizes of the polar caps explain the variability in the pressure of the Martian atmosphere.

The relief of the Martian surface is complex and has many details. Dried channels and canyons on the surface of Mars gave rise to assumptions about the existence of an advanced civilization on Mars - for more details, see the article Life on Mars.

A typical Martian landscape resembles a terrestrial desert, and the surface of Mars has a reddish tint due to the increased content of iron oxides in the Martian sand.

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> > > Temperature on Mars

What is the temperature on Mars: meaning day and night, summer and winter. Find out the average temperature of the atmosphere and surface of Mars, a description of the climate and research.

The red planet is located farther from the Sun than the Earth, so the planet gets less heat. To be more precise, this is an extremely cool place. The only exception is during the summer. But even at this time temperature on mars drops below 0°C. In summer, the Red Planet can warm up to 20°C, and at night the temperature drops to -90°C.

Mars moves in an elliptical path, so the surface temperature is constantly changing, but not by much. According to the axial tilt of 25.19 degrees, it resembles the earth (26.27), which means it has seasons. Let's add here a thin atmospheric layer and understand why the planet fails to save at least minimal heating. The atmosphere is 96% carbon dioxide. If it were denser, then a greenhouse effect would form and we got a second Venus.

How has the temperature changed on Mars?

What about the past? Mars rovers and probes show areas of erosion that could be caused by liquid water. This hints that earlier Mars was not only warm, but also humid. However, the Red Planet has been dry and frosty for 3 billion years. Some believe that the cooling process started 4 billion years ago. However, the traces of erosion have not disappeared because there is no liquid water or plate tectonics. The wind is present, but not strong enough to transform the surface.

It is important for researchers to monitor warm weather and liquid water because they are essential for the origin and evolution of life. In addition, if we plan further exploration and colonization, then we cannot do without water sources. The mission will take at least a few years. Before the crew arrives, the water ice can be melted and cleaned.

If the temperature of Mars can still be fought, then water is the main obstacle to colonization. It remains only to develop the technology that will safely take us there and back. Now you know how the temperature on Mars is day and night.

Although Mars climate closest to the earth, it is not very favorable for life.

The planet's atmosphere is thinner than Earth's. It contains ninety-five percent carbon dioxide, four percent nitrogen and argon, and only one percent oxygen and water vapor.

Compared to Earth, the average atmospheric pressure on Mars is one hundred and sixty times less. Due to evaporation in summer and condensation in winter, as well as a large amount of carbon dioxide at the poles, in the polar caps, the mass of the atmosphere varies greatly during the year.

Despite the fact that the Martian atmosphere contains very little water vapor, at low temperature and pressure, being in a state close to saturation, it often collects in clouds. Observations made by spacecraft have shown that there are wavy, cirrus and lee clouds on Mars.

In the cold season, fogs often rise at the bottom of the craters and over the lowlands. Sometimes there is thin snow.

Spacecraft studies have shown that there is currently no liquid water on Mars, but there is evidence of its presence in the past. In July 2008, NASA's Phoenix spacecraft discovered water in the state of ice in the ground. The average temperature on Mars is around -40 degrees Celsius. In the daytime half of the planet, the temperature rises to 20 degrees Celsius in summer, but in winter, nighttime temperatures can drop to -125 degrees Celsius.

The rarefied atmosphere of Mars cannot retain heat for a long time, which explains the sharp temperature drops. Thus, we can say that Mars has a rather harsh climate, but it is not much colder there than in Antarctica.

Because of the temperature difference on Mars, strong winds often blow. Their speed reaches one hundred meters per second. Due to the small force of gravity, the winds raise huge clouds of dust. On Mars, long-lasting dust storms often rage. For example, one of them raged from September 1971 to January 1972 and raised about a billion tons of dust into the atmosphere to a height of ten kilometers. The formation of dust tornadoes on Mars is also associated with temperature differences.

The axis of rotation of the Earth is inclined to the orbital plane by 23.4 degrees, and of Mars - by 23.9 degrees, the Martian day almost coincides with the Earth, therefore, on Mars, as on Earth, there is a change of seasons. In the polar regions, seasonal changes are most pronounced. In winter, the polar caps cover a large area. Winters in the southern hemisphere are long and cold, while those in the northern hemisphere are short and relatively mild. In spring, the polar caps are significantly reduced, but even in summer they do not disappear completely. And summer on Mars in the southern hemisphere is short and relatively warm, in the northern hemisphere it is long and cool.

This page provides all the wealth of meteorological data that the rover (Curiosity) transmits on .

The table is updated when the page is loaded, the weather data on Mars is updated as information is transmitted from the Curiosity rover.

* Explanations: when the value is null, there is no data. The value "- -" means no wind.

The data on the Weather on Mars page is from the Rover environmental monitoring station (REMS). The data itself is published by the organization Centro de Astrobiologia (CSIC-INTA) Spain.

Seasons on Mars

The planet has the same four seasons as Earth, but because the year on Mars is longer, the axial tilt is slightly different, and the orbit is more eccentric, the seasons on Mars are not the same length.

The Martian year is almost twice as long as the Earth year (1.88 Earth years) and the seasons are correspondingly longer. In the northern hemisphere, spring lasts 7 months, summer 6 months, autumn 5.3 months, and winter just over 4 months. Even in the summer months, the planet is very cold. The temperature at the height of the season does not exceed -20 C. In the south, the temperature can reach 30 C. Strong temperature fluctuations between the hemispheres cause huge dust storms. Some of them may only affect a small area, while others cover the entire planet. Planetary storms usually occur when a planet is near perihelion (the closest point to the Sun). When a global dust storm begins, the surface of the planet is almost completely hidden.

The planet Mars has an equatorial diameter of 6787 km, i.e. 0.53 of the Earth's. The polar diameter is somewhat less than the equatorial one (6753 km) due to the polar compression equal to 1/191 (against 1/298 near the Earth). Mars rotates on its axis in much the same way as the Earth: its period of rotation is 24 hours. 37 min. 23 seconds, which is only 41 minutes. 19 sec. longer than the Earth's rotation period. The axis of rotation is inclined to the plane of the orbit at an angle of 65°, almost equal to the angle of inclination of the earth's axis (66°.5). This means that the change of day and night, as well as the change of seasons on Mars, proceed in almost the same way as on Earth. There are also climatic zones similar to those on Earth: tropical (tropical latitude ± 25 °), two temperate and two polar (polar circle latitude ± 65 °).

However, due to the remoteness of Mars from the Sun and the rarefaction of the atmosphere, the climate of the planet is much more severe than that of the earth. The year of Mars (687 Earth or 668 Martian days) is almost twice as long as the Earth, which means that the seasons last longer. Due to the large eccentricity of the orbit (0.09), the duration and nature of the seasons of Mars are different in the northern and southern hemispheres of the planet.

Thus, in the northern hemisphere of Mars, summers are long but cool, and winters are short and mild (Mars is close to perihelion at this time), while in the southern hemisphere, summers are short but warm, and winters are long and harsh. On the disk of Mars in the middle of the XVII century. dark and light areas were seen. In 1784

V. Herschel drew attention to seasonal changes in the size of white spots near the poles (polar caps). In 1882, the Italian astronomer J. Schiaparelli compiled a detailed map of Mars and gave a system of names for the details of its surface; highlighting among the dark spots "seas" (in Latin mare), "lakes" (lacus), "bays" (sinus), "swamps" (palus), "straits" (freturn), "sources" (fens), " capes" (promontorium) and "regions" (regio). All these terms were, of course, purely conventional.

The temperature regime on Mars looks like this. In the daytime around the equator, if Mars is near perihelion, the temperature can rise to +25°C (about 300°K). But by evening, it drops to zero and below, and during the night the planet cools even more, since the rarefied dry atmosphere of the planet cannot retain the heat received from the Sun during the day.

The average temperature on Mars is much lower than on Earth - about -40 ° C. Under the most favorable conditions in the summer in the daytime half of the planet, the air warms up to 20 ° C - quite an acceptable temperature for the inhabitants of the Earth. But on a winter night, frost can reach up to -125 ° C. At winter temperatures, even carbon dioxide freezes, turning into dry ice. Such sharp temperature drops are caused by the fact that the rarefied atmosphere of Mars is not able to retain heat for a long time. The first measurements of the temperature of Mars using a thermometer placed at the focus of a reflecting telescope were carried out as early as the early 1920s. Measurements by W. Lampland in 1922 gave an average surface temperature of Mars of -28°C, E. Pettit and S. Nicholson in 1924 obtained -13°C. A lower value was obtained in 1960. W. Sinton and J. Strong: -43°C. Later, in the 50s and 60s. Numerous temperature measurements were accumulated and summarized at various points on the surface of Mars, in different seasons and times of the day. From these measurements, it followed that during the day at the equator the temperature can reach up to +27°C, but by morning it can reach -50°C.

The Viking spacecraft measured the temperature near the surface after landing on Mars. Despite the fact that at that time it was summer in the southern hemisphere, the temperature of the atmosphere near the surface in the morning was -160°C, but by the middle of the day it rose to -30°C. The pressure of the atmosphere at the surface of the planet is 6 millibars (i.e. 0.006 atmospheres). Above the continents (deserts) of Mars, clouds of fine dust constantly rush, which is always lighter than the rocks from which it is formed. Dust also increases the brightness of the continents in the red rays.

Under the influence of winds and tornadoes, dust on Mars can rise into the atmosphere and stay in it for quite some time. Strong dust storms were observed in the southern hemisphere of Mars in 1956, 1971 and 1973. As shown by spectral observations in infrared rays, in the atmosphere of Mars (as in the atmosphere of Venus) the main component is carbon dioxide (CO3). Long-term searches for oxygen and water vapor at first did not give reliable results at all, and then it was found that oxygen in the atmosphere of Mars is no more than 0.3%.