Thermal Emission Spectrometer Observations of the South and North Polar Regions During the First Phase of Aerobraking Orbits

Details Thermal Emission Spectrometer Observations of the South and North Polar Regions During the First Phase of Aerobraking Orbits Thermal Emission Spectrometer Observations of the South and North Polar Regions During the First Phase of Aerobraking Orbits

Jan 1998

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998lpico.953...23k&link_type=abstract

The First International Conference on Mars Polar Science and Exploration, Proceedings of the Conference held at Camp Allen, TX.

Computer Science

Mars Surface, Planetary Temperature, Polar Caps, Snow, Thermal Mapping, Carbon Dioxide, Ice, Spectrometers, Brightness Temperature

Scientific paper

Repeated TES coverage of the south polar regions of Mars was obtained over much of the cap recession phase. A map has been made of the date when the last CO, disappeared (Fig. 1). This was defined by sliding a representative temperature vs. time curve along the observations for each location in the polar region, and picking the season of maximum temperature change rate. Regressions in the classic area "Mountains of Mitchell" are delayed significantly. One region within the annual polar cap became dark long before the temperatures began to rise; in comparison with most areas that show a gradual increase in brightness until a rapid darkening as the temperature rises well above C02 frost values. The extent of this area does not correspond to any particular surface material mapped at 1:5M scale. The cause of this unexpected behavior is under study; one working hypothesis is that as a solid CO2 forms here nonscattering solid ice. Observations of the north polar region in winter reveal locations where the 20-microns brightness temperature is much lower than the condensation temperature of C02 at Mars surface pressures similar to Viking Infrared Thermal Mapper (IRTM) observations. The TES spectra of these locations suggest that the effect is due to low emissivity temperature. The fine snow quickly metamorphoses into a coarser-grained deposit, which has emissivity closer to 1.

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