On the surface of Mars, the temperature varies from. temperature on Mars. Planets of the solar system. Changes over time

The climate on Mars, although unfavorable for life, is still closest to the earth. Presumably in the past Mars climate could have been warmer and wetter, and liquid water was present on the surface and it even rained.

Mars is the most likely target for the first manned expedition to another planet.

Encyclopedic YouTube

1 / 3

✪ Climate of Planet Mars | What is the temperature of Mars

✪ Vladimir Dovbush: Talking about the causes of global climate change

✪ Mysterious Mars

Subtitles

atmospheric composition

The atmosphere of Mars is more rarefied than the air shell of the Earth, and 95.9% consists of carbon dioxide, about 1.9% is nitrogen and 2% argon. The oxygen content is 0.14%. 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.

Studies conducted by the Mariner 4 spacecraft in 1965 showed that there is currently no liquid water on Mars, but data from NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers indicate the presence of water in the past. On July 31, 2008, water in the state of ice was discovered on Mars at the landing site of NASA's Phoenix spacecraft. The device found ice deposits directly in the ground.

There are several facts in support of the claim of the presence of water on the surface of the planet in the past. First, minerals have been found that could only form as a result of prolonged exposure to water. Secondly, very old craters are practically wiped off the face of Mars. The modern atmosphere could not cause such destruction. The study of the rate of formation and erosion of craters made it possible to establish that wind and water destroyed them most of all about 3.5 billion years ago. Many gullies have approximately the same age.

NASA announced on September 28, 2015 that Mars currently has seasonal liquid salt water flows. These formations manifest themselves in the warm season and disappear - in the cold. Planetary scientists came to their conclusions by analyzing high-quality images obtained by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) scientific instrument of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) Martian orbiter.

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 atmosphere warms up to 20 ° C - quite an acceptable temperature for the inhabitants of the Earth. But on winter nights, frost can reach -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. 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 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.

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.

Links

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010 .

See what the "Climate of Mars" is in other dictionaries:

Climate - get an active 220 Volt coupon at Academician or buy a favorable climate at a low price at a sale of 220 Volts

City of Marsa Alama Country EgyptEgypt Mu ... Wikipedia

The polar cap of Mars ... Wikipedia

The polar cap of Mars The hydrosphere of Mars is the totality of the water reserves of the planet Mars, represented by water ice in the polar caps of Mars, ice under the surface, and possible reservoirs of liquid water and aqueous salt solutions in the upper layers ... ... Wikipedia

- "The Sands of Mars" The Sands of Mars Edition 1993, "North West" Genre: Novel

Map of Mars by Giovanni Schiaparelli Martian channels A network of long straight lines in the equatorial region of Mars, discovered by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli during the opposition of 1877, and confirmed by subsequent observations ... ... Wikipedia

Now Mars has a dry and cold climate (left), but in the early stages of the planet's evolution, it most likely had liquid water and a dense atmosphere (right).

The study

Observation history

Current Observations

Weather

Temperature

The average temperature on Mars is much lower than on Earth: −63°C. Since the atmosphere of Mars is very rarefied, it does not smooth out daily fluctuations in surface temperature. Under the most favorable conditions in the summer in the daytime half of the planet, the air warms up to 20 ° C (and at the equator - up to +27 ° C) - a completely acceptable temperature for the inhabitants of the Earth. The maximum air temperature recorded by the Spirit rover was +35 ° C. But winter at night, frost can reach even at the equator from -80 ° C to -125 ° C, and at the poles, night temperatures can drop to -143 ° C. However, diurnal temperature fluctuations are not as significant as on the atmosphereless Moon and Mercury. On Mars, there are temperature oases, in the areas of the "lake" Phoenix (plateau of the Sun) and Noah's land temperature difference is from -53°С to +22°С in summer and from -103°С to -43°С in winter. Thus, Mars is a very cold world, the climate there is much more severe than in Antarctica.

Atmosphere pressure

The atmosphere of Mars is more rarefied than the Earth's air shell, and consists of more than 95% carbon dioxide, while the content of oxygen and water is a fraction of a percent. The average pressure of the atmosphere at the surface is on average 0.6 kPa or 6 mbar, which is 160 less than the earth's or equal to the earth's at an altitude of almost 35 km from the Earth's surface). Atmospheric pressure undergoes strong daily and seasonal changes.

Cloud cover and precipitation

Water vapor in the Martian atmosphere is no more than a thousandth of a percent, however, according to the results of recent (2013) studies, this is still more than previously thought, and more than in the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere, and at low pressure and temperature, it is in a state close to saturation, so it often gathers in clouds. As a rule, water clouds form at altitudes of 10-30 km above the surface. They are concentrated mainly on the equator and are observed almost throughout the year. Clouds observed at high levels of the atmosphere (more than 20 km) are formed as a result of CO 2 condensation. The same process is responsible for the formation of low (at an altitude of less than 10 km) clouds in the polar regions in winter, when the atmospheric temperature drops below the freezing point of CO 2 (-126 °С); in summer, similar thin formations are formed from ice H 2 O

Formations of a condensation nature are also represented by fogs (or haze). They often stand above lowlands - canyons, valleys - and at the bottom of craters during the cold time of the day.

Blizzards can occur in the Martian atmosphere. In 2008, the Phoenix rover observed virgu in the polar regions - precipitation under the clouds, evaporating before reaching the surface of the planet. According to initial estimates, the rate of precipitation in the virga was very low. However, recent (2017) modeling of Martian atmospheric phenomena showed that at mid-latitudes, where there is a regular change of day and night, after sunset, the clouds cool sharply, and this can lead to snowstorms, during which particle speeds can actually reach 10 m /With. Scientists assume that strong winds combined with low cloud cover (usually Martian clouds form at an altitude of 10-20 km) can cause snow to fall on the surface of Mars. This phenomenon is similar to terrestrial microbursts - squalls of downwind wind at speeds up to 35 m/s, often associated with thunderstorms.

Snow has indeed been observed more than once. So, in the winter of 1979, a thin layer of snow fell in the Viking-2 landing area, which lay for several months.

Dust storms and tornadoes

A characteristic feature of the atmosphere of Mars is the constant presence of dust, the particles of which have a size of the order of 1.5 mm and consist mainly of iron oxide. Low gravity allows even rarefied air flows to raise huge clouds of dust to a height of up to 50 km. And the winds, which are one of the manifestations of the temperature difference, often blow over the surface of the planet (especially in late spring - early summer in the southern hemisphere, when the temperature difference between the hemispheres is especially sharp), and their speed reaches 100 m/s. In this way, extensive dust storms are formed, which have long been observed in the form of individual yellow clouds, and sometimes in the form of a continuous yellow veil covering the entire planet. Most often, dust storms occur near the polar caps, their duration can reach 50-100 days. Weak yellow haze in the atmosphere, as a rule, is observed after large dust storms and is easily detected by photometric and polarimetric methods.

Dust storms, which were well observed on images taken from orbiters, turned out to be barely visible when photographed from landers. The passage of dust storms at the landing sites of these space stations was recorded only by a sharp change in temperature, pressure, and a very slight darkening of the general sky background. The layer of dust that settled after the storm in the vicinity of the Viking landing sites amounted to only a few micrometers. All this indicates a rather low bearing capacity of the Martian atmosphere.

From September 1971 to January 1972, a global dust storm took place on Mars, which even prevented photographing the surface from the Mariner 9 probe. The mass of dust in the atmospheric column (with an optical thickness of 0.1 to 10) estimated during this period ranged from 7.8⋅10 -5 to 1.66⋅10 -3 g/cm 2 . Thus, the total weight of dust particles in the Martian atmosphere during the period of global dust storms can reach up to 10 8 - 10 9 tons, which is commensurate with the total amount of dust in the Earth's atmosphere.

The question of water availability

For the stable existence of pure water in the liquid state, the temperature and the partial pressure of water vapor in the atmosphere should be above the triple point on the phase diagram, while now they are far from the corresponding values. Indeed, studies conducted by the Mariner 4 spacecraft in 1965 showed that there is currently no liquid water on Mars, but data from NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers indicate the presence of water in the past. On July 31, 2008, water in the state of ice was discovered on Mars at the landing site of NASA's Phoenix spacecraft. The device found ice deposits directly in the ground. There are several facts in support of the claim of the presence of water on the surface of the planet in the past. First, minerals have been found that could only form as a result of prolonged exposure to water. Secondly, very old craters are practically wiped off the face of Mars. The modern atmosphere could not cause such destruction. The study of the rate of formation and erosion of craters made it possible to establish that wind and water destroyed them most of all about 3.5 billion years ago. Many gullies have approximately the same age.

NASA announced on September 28, 2015 that Mars currently has seasonal liquid salt water flows. These formations manifest themselves in the warm season and disappear - in the cold. Planetologists came to their conclusions by analyzing high-quality images obtained by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) scientific instrument of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) Martian orbiter.

On July 25, 2018, a report was released on a discovery based on research by the MARSIS radar. The work showed the presence of a subglacial lake on Mars, located at a depth of 1.5 km under the ice of the South polar cap (at Planum Australe), about 20 km wide. This became the first known permanent body of water on Mars.

Seasons

Like on Earth, on Mars there is a change of seasons due to the tilt of the axis of rotation to the plane of the orbit, so in winter the polar cap grows in the northern hemisphere, and almost disappears in the southern, and after six months the hemispheres change places. At the same time, due to the rather large eccentricity of the planet's orbit at perihelion (winter solstice in the northern hemisphere), it receives up to 40% more solar radiation than in aphelion, and in the northern hemisphere, winter is short and relatively moderate, and summer is long, but cool, in in the south, on the contrary, summers are short and relatively warm, and winters are long and cold. In this regard, the southern cap in winter grows up to half the pole-equator distance, and the northern cap only up to a third. When summer comes at one of the poles, carbon dioxide from the corresponding polar cap evaporates and enters the atmosphere; the winds carry it to the opposite cap, where it freezes again. In this way, the carbon dioxide cycle occurs, which, along with the different sizes of the polar caps, causes a change in the pressure of the Martian atmosphere as it orbits the Sun. Due to the fact that in winter up to 20-30% of the entire atmosphere freezes in the polar cap, the pressure in the corresponding area drops accordingly.

Changes over time

As on Earth, the climate of Mars underwent long-term changes and in the early stages of the planet's evolution was very different from the current one. The difference is that the main role in the cyclical changes in the Earth's climate is played by the change in the eccentricity of the orbit and the precession of the axis of rotation, while the tilt of the axis of rotation remains approximately constant due to the stabilizing effect of the Moon, while Mars, without such a large satellite, can undergo significant changes in inclination. its axis of rotation. Calculations have shown that the inclination of the axis of rotation of Mars, which is now 25 ° - about the same value as that of the Earth - was 45 ° in the recent past, and on a scale of millions of years could vary from 10 ° to 50 °.

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%.