Mars Surface Heterogeneity From Variations in Apparent Thermal Inertia

Details Mars Surface Heterogeneity From Variations in Apparent Thermal Inertia Mars Surface Heterogeneity From Variations in Apparent Thermal Inertia

Dec 2005

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005agufm.p24a..02p&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2005, abstract #P24A-02

Physics

5460 Physical Properties Of Materials, 5464 Remote Sensing, 5470 Surface Materials And Properties, 5494 Instruments And Techniques, 6225 Mars

Scientific paper

Current techniques used in the calculation of thermal inertia from observed brightness temperatures typically assume that planetary surface properties are uniform on the scale of the instrument's observational footprint. Mixed or layered surfaces may yield different apparent thermal inertia values at different seasons or times of day due to the nonlinear relationship between temperature and thermal inertia. To obtain sufficient data coverage for investigating temporal changes, we processed three Mars years of observations from the Mars Global Surveyor Thermal Emission Spectrometer and produced seasonal nightside and dayside maps of apparent thermal inertia. These maps show broad regions with seasonal and diurnal differences as large as 200 J m-2 K-1 s-½ at mid-latitudes (60°S to 60°N) and ranging up to 600 J m-2 K-1 s-½ or greater in the polar regions. Comparison of the maps with preliminary results from forward-modeling of heterogeneous surfaces indicates that much of the martian surface may be dominated by (1) horizontally mixed surfaces, such as those containing differing proportions of rocks, sand, dust, duricrust, and localized frosts; (2) higher thermal inertia layers over lower thermal inertia substrates, such as duricrust or desert pavements; and (3) lower thermal inertia layers over higher thermal inertia substrates, such as dust over sand or rocks and soils with an ice table at depth.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Mars Surface Heterogeneity From Variations in Apparent Thermal Inertia does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Mars Surface Heterogeneity From Variations in Apparent Thermal Inertia, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Mars Surface Heterogeneity From Variations in Apparent Thermal Inertia will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-749208