Saturday, October 6, 2012

MSL REMS Science Reports - SPACEFLIGHT101

Spaceflight 101 has an excellent article that comments on the data from the REMS instrument from sol 21 up to sol 56. Its quite an interesting read. Please check it out by following the link below:
MSL REMS Science Reports - SPACEFLIGHT101

The paragraph on ultraviolet radiation is interesting as that's one of the things that I haven't been following up closely. To quote the report:
REMS has also been taking UV-Radiation Data, measuring different properties of the UV-Environment on the Martian Surface with respect to atmospheric dust and other atmospheric properties that are also determined with REMS. As the season progresses, the sun is rising higher at noon each Sol which has been shown by the UV Sensor. 
Initial images of the UVS Assembly on the Rover deck taken by Curiosity’s NavCams and MastCams have shown that there was not a significant amount of dust on the UVS. With UVS being off to a good start, data taken during the first Sols on Mars is currently being analyzed. The maximal irradiance values provided by UVS can be used to estimate the amount of atmospheric dust that is present at Gale Crater. MSL data has shown similar values to those acquired by the Mars Exploration Rovers during similar seasonal periods.
 The note on the amount of dust on the instrument is good because investigators don't need to perform any analytical gymnastics to rid the data of unwanted signals.

Also checkout the air pressure chart to see how much the pressure varies everyday, up to 15% of total atmospheric pressure. If that were to happen on Earth our ears would be popping everyday! That would be uncomfortable. Not to mention some of us would be breathless half of the day. The explanation is simple, Mars' atmosphere gets heated during the day, increasing the pressure and cools at night, lowering the pressure. Of course there are also long term variations due seasons and local weather (although Martian weather looks monotonous, it has its moments weatherwise).

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