TES Dust Storm Movie

The Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) instrument has been mapping the temperature and amount of dust in the martian atmosphere for over one Mars year (approximately two Earth years). These maps are made using thermal infrared observations that allow the TES Team to determine both the atmospheric temperature and the dust abundance. Each day the MGS spacecraft makes twelve orbits around the planet, providing 12 nighttime and 12 daytime swaths from pole to pole and a single measure of dust abundance. The TES data are binned into 5 by 5 degree latitude, longitude bins for the entire planet and then filled to make daily global images of the dust abundance and atmospheric temperature. The TES data have been colorized and draped over a shaded-relief representation of the Mars topographic map made from MGS Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter data.

Beginning in mid-June, 2001 a region of increased dust abundance began to appear in the Hellas Basin (~45, 300). This activity persisted for over a week until June 26 when the storm began to intensify and expand. The past week has seen a major increase in the size and severity of this storm. At present it has expanded well into the northern hemisphere and has wrapped approximately half way around the planet. This storm is the largest that has been seen during the MGS mission. TES has monitored the atmosphere throughout the mapping mission and has not seen a storm of this intensity nor size before. This storm also began earlier than normal for martian dust storms. In the past when a large storm has occurred early there are usually several large storms during the year. We will be monitoring Mars over the next few months to see how this major storm develops and to test their predictions of more storms to come. We expect that the storm will continue to grow - perhaps becoming a global storm of the type that was seen during the Mariner 9 and Viking missions.

As the dust has expanded the atmosphere has warmed dramatically, reaching temperatures more than 20C higher than pre-storm levels. The warming in the southern hemisphere is due to direct heating of the dust as it absorbs sunlight. This warm air rises moves across the equator into the northern hemisphere, much as warm air rises in the tropics on Earth and moves to the sub-tropics where it descends to create the Earth's hot, dry desert zones. As a result, the martian atmosphere is warming in the northern hemisphere in advance of the expanding dust storm.

Dust storms are an important part of the martian climate, with major differences from one year to the next in the number, size, and intensity of these storms. The MGS observations provide the best-ever global monitoring of the growth of a large storm, and will provide important insights into the causes for the development of these massive storms and the reasons for the year-to-year variability.

This storm should not have a major impact on the Odyssey mission's plan for aerobraking through the martian atmosphere. Using the MGS TES and MOC data NASA plans to monitor the martian atmosphere on an hourly basis, providing the Odyssey spacecraft team the information they need to keep the Odyssey spacecraft at the proper height where it can safely fly through the atmosphere. This height will change with changing dust storms, but it can be adjusted to react to the changing atmosphere that is observed by TES and MOC.

Click here for a smaller (1 MB) version of the movie.

The latest new image (only) can be seen here.

New images will be added to the movie daily for the duration of the dust storm.

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