Temperature on the planets of the solar system. What is the weather like on Mars? What is the atmosphere of Mars, its composition? Who said you can live on Mars? What is a Martian year? Air temperature on Mars day and night

Although Mars climate closest to the earth, it is not very favorable for life.

The planet's atmosphere is thinner than Earth's. It contains ninety-five percent carbon dioxide, four percent nitrogen and argon, and only one percent oxygen and water vapor.

Compared to Earth, the average atmospheric pressure on Mars is one hundred and sixty times less. Due to evaporation in summer and condensation in winter, as well as a large amount of carbon dioxide at the poles, in the polar caps, the mass of the atmosphere varies greatly during the year.

Despite the fact that the Martian atmosphere contains very little water vapor, at low temperature and pressure, being in a state close to saturation, it often collects in clouds. Observations made by spacecraft have shown that there are wavy, cirrus and lee clouds on Mars.

In the cold season, fogs often rise at the bottom of the craters and over the lowlands. Sometimes there is thin snow.

Spacecraft studies have shown that there is currently no liquid water on Mars, but there is evidence of its presence in the past. In July 2008, NASA's Phoenix spacecraft discovered water in the state of ice in the ground. The average temperature on Mars is around -40 degrees Celsius. In the daytime half of the planet, the temperature rises to 20 degrees Celsius in summer, but in winter, nighttime temperatures can drop to -125 degrees Celsius.

The rarefied atmosphere of Mars cannot retain heat for a long time, which explains the sharp temperature drops. Thus, we can say that Mars has a rather harsh climate, but it is not much colder there than in Antarctica.

Because of the temperature difference on Mars, strong winds often blow. Their speed reaches one hundred meters per second. Due to the small force of gravity, the winds raise huge clouds of dust. On Mars, long-lasting dust storms often rage. For example, one of them raged from September 1971 to January 1972 and raised about a billion tons of dust into the atmosphere to a height of ten kilometers. The formation of dust tornadoes on Mars is also associated with temperature differences.

The axis of rotation of the Earth is inclined to the orbital plane by 23.4 degrees, and of Mars - by 23.9 degrees, the Martian day almost coincides with the Earth, therefore, on Mars, as on Earth, there is a change of seasons. In the polar regions, seasonal changes are most pronounced. In winter, the polar caps cover a large area. Winters in the southern hemisphere are long and cold, while those in the northern hemisphere are short and relatively mild. In spring, the polar caps are significantly reduced, but even in summer they do not disappear completely. And summer on Mars in the southern hemisphere is short and relatively warm, in the northern hemisphere it is long and cool.

Foreign researchers of Mars were surprised by an abnormally warm spring. Russian scientists have known about this since 2002

The red planet never ceases to amaze earthlings. Recently, the Curiosity rover found river gravel there, a pyramid-shaped stone, transmitted to Earth a photo of a beautiful solar eclipse ... And also, according to Spanish researchers who put their temperature sensors on the rover, it got unusually warm on Mars - up to +6. For the Martian spring that is now observed there, this is just a resort. Compatriots of Salvador Dali say that if the trend continues, then talk about colonization will become more than real. But is it really warmer on Mars than before? What would earthlings see if they were now on this planet? "MK" learned this by talking with Russian scientists from the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Some of them have recently returned from an international conference in Madrid.

So, the REMS meteorological station, installed aboard the Curiosity rover, found that the spring that came to Mars turned out to be unexpectedly warm. At least this is how the representatives of the scientific team managing the work of the rover presented the news. According to scientists, in particular Felipe Gomez (Felipe Gomez) from the Spanish Center for Astrobiology, the heat on Mars surprised him and his colleagues.

The landing site of Curiosity on August 6 was the descent of Bradbury in the southern hemisphere of the Red Planet. Since the Martian spring is now approaching there, scientists are closely monitoring its features. Half the time since landing, the daytime temperatures measured by the REMS station have been above freezing, they said. Thus, the average daily temperature was +6 degrees during the day and -70 degrees at night. This surprised scientists, who, in their own words, expected a colder Martian day. “The fact that Mars is so “warm” during daylight hours surprised and interested us in itself. If this warming continues into summer, we'll see temperatures of +20 or more, which is great when you look at Mars from a colonization standpoint. It is likely that daytime temperatures will be able to keep the water in a liquid state. But it is still difficult to say whether such temperatures are the norm or just an anomaly,” continued Gomez.

We asked the employees of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences to solve the Gomez problem.

- The indicated temperatures are the norm for a Martian spring. In general, the weather there is very stable, we can predict it much more accurately than on Earth. And all because there is no turbulence on Mars (irregular mutual movements in the atmosphere), - explains MIPT associate professor, senior researcher at IKI RAS Alexander RODIN.

Why then did the spring warmth surprise the Spaniards?

“They are on the rise now, because their Center for Astrobiology installed their weather sensors on Curiosity, and at any opportunity they are looking for an excuse to talk about the weather. What Felipe Gomez said, who is more of a science official than a researcher, is, of course, an exaggeration. Spanish sensors could detect some slight increase in temperature, but it does not indicate a serious trend.

According to Rodin, a global dust storm could have led to a slight warming (these happen on Mars 1-2 times a year, just during the period when spring or summer is in the southern hemisphere). However, these storms are so powerful that they cover the entire planet with their plume for 100-150 days. And since the dust absorbs the sun's rays and converts their energy into heat, on Mars during such storms the average daily temperature can rise. The origin of such storms is currently a mystery to meteorologists. Apart from storms, the weather on Mars is almost always stable and predictable. Due to the very thin atmosphere, daytime heat quickly evaporates - and at night the surface of the planet can cool down by 100 degrees at once. The average daily temperature on Mars is almost always -50 degrees. However, in the hottest spots, daytime temperatures can reach +20...30 degrees in the summer.

By the way, Rodin’s words are also confirmed by the head of the laboratory of space gamma spectroscopy Igor MITROFANOV, he is also the developer of the Russian device HAND, which is now working on board the American Martian satellite Mars Odyssey.

“HAND has been “observing” seasonal processes on the Red Planet for about 5 Martian years continuously since February 2002,” says Mitrofanov. “We are recording the thickness of the winter cover of “dry snow” from atmospheric carbon dioxide in the northern and southern hemispheres. So far, the seasonal profile of accumulation and evaporation of the Martian "dry snow" that we have measured so far repeats remarkably accurately every Martian year. This year is no exception. In the southern hemisphere of Mars comes the usual Martian spring. On a summer day at the equator of Mars, the surface temperature can reach +30 degrees Celsius (read like we have in Moscow).

By the way, according to Mitrofanov, if people landed on Mars in the spring, an amazing sight would await them here - carbon dioxide geysers.

Spring geysers on Mars.

“In the spring, on Earth, the snow melts and turns into water,” says Igor Mitrofanov. - Therefore, streams flow on Earth in spring. But on Mars, snow is made of frozen carbon dioxide, and when the temperature rises, it turns into carbon dioxide. This happens as follows: the spring sun's rays penetrate the snow cover and warm the soil surface. As a result, carbon dioxide arises under a layer of dry snow, which gradually accumulates in the near-surface space. The pressure of the gas increases, and somewhere in the upper layer of "dry snow" a crack forms, through which the accumulated gas suddenly breaks out to the surface with noise. Such is the nature of springtime Martian geysers.

What else was discussed at the conference in Madrid

Polar vortices, very reminiscent of Venusian ones, have been discovered on Titan. Since the atmospheres on these planets move faster than the planets themselves, the vortices are very powerful formations that do not collapse for a long time. The discovery of vortices on Titan allows scientists to understand the general nature of the laws of nature operating on different planets.

Among the exoplanets (planets located outside the solar system) similar to the Earth has not yet been found. But Super-Earths have been discovered, the mass of which is 10 times the mass of our planet. True, they are more like Venus.

Mars- this is a harsh, cold world, the conditions on which are very different from those familiar to us. Despite the fact that the Sun (when viewed from the surface of Mars) seems to be only slightly smaller here than when observed from the Earth, in fact Mars is at a distance from it, that is, much further than our planet (149.5 million km .). Accordingly, this planet gets a quarter less solar energy than the Earth.

However, the distance from the Sun is only one of the reasons why the planet Mars is a cold planet. The second reason is that it is too thin, consisting of 95% carbon dioxide, and unable to retain enough heat.

Why is the atmosphere so important? Because for our (and any other) planet, it serves as a kind of "thermal underwear" or "blanket" that prevents the surface from cooling too quickly. Now imagine that if on Earth, with its very dense atmosphere, during winter periods the temperature drops in some regions to -50-70 degrees Celsius, how cold it must be on Mars, whose blanket-atmosphere is 100 times thinner than Earth!

Snow on Mars is a landscape as seen by one of the rovers on the surface of the red planet. To be honest, in Yakutia I saw exactly the same landscapes

Temperature on Mars day and night

So, Mars is a lifeless and cold planet, because of the thin atmosphere, it is completely deprived of the chance to ever “warm up”. However, what temperature is usually observed in Martian conditions?

Average temperature on Mars is something around minus 60 degrees Celsius. So that you understand how cold it is, then here's food for thought: on Earth, the average temperature is +14.8 degrees, so yes, Mars is very, very "cool". In winter, near the poles, the temperature on Mars can drop to -125 degrees Celsius, regardless of the time of day. On a summer day, near the equator, the planet is relatively warm: up to +20 degrees, but at night the thermometer will again fall to -73. You can't say anything - the conditions are just extreme!

As temperatures drop, particles of carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere freeze and fall out as frost, covering the surface and rocks of the planet like snow. Martian "snow" bears little resemblance to the earth's, because its snowflakes do not exceed the size of erythrocyte cells in human blood in size. Rather, such "snow" resembles a discharged fog that settles on the surface of the planet as it freezes. However, as soon as the Martian morning comes, and the atmosphere of the planet begins to warm up, carbon dioxide will again turn into a volatile compound, and again cover everything around with white fog until it completely evaporates.

The ice caps of Mars in a good telescope are visible even from the ground

Seasons (seasons) on Mars

Like our planet, the axis of Mars is somewhat inclined relative to the plane, which in turn means that, just like on Earth, Mars has 4 seasons, or seasons. However, due to the fact that the orbit of Mars around the Sun does not resemble an even circle, but is somewhat shifted to the side relative to the center (the sun), the length of the Martian seasons is also uneven.

So, in the northern hemisphere of the planet, the longest season is Spring, which lasts on Mars as much as seven earthly months. Summer and autumn about six months, but the Martian winter is the shortest season of the year, and lasts only four months.

During the Martian summer, the planet's polar ice cap, which is mostly carbon dioxide, shrinks significantly and may disappear altogether. However, even a short but unusually cold Martian winter is enough to build it up again. If there is water somewhere on Mars, then most likely you need to look for it at the pole, where it is trapped under a layer of frozen carbon dioxide.

“We have bad weather on Mars!” - so it was said in one poem about astronauts, composed in those days when it was still surrounded by a halo of romance ... But really, what is the weather like on the "red planet"?

Speaking of the weather on Earth, we primarily mean the state of the atmosphere. On Mars, it is also there - but not the same as ours. The fact is that Mars, unlike the Earth, does not have a magnetic field that would hold the atmosphere - and the solar wind (a stream of ionized particles from the solar corona) destroys it. Therefore, the atmospheric pressure at the planet's surface is 160 times lower than the earth's. This cannot protect the planet from daily temperature fluctuations (since it does not prevent the radiation of thermal energy into space), therefore, at the equator, the air temperature, rising to +30 ° C during the day, drops to -80 ° C at night, and even lower at the poles - up to -143°C.

But what is very similar for our planets is the angle of inclination of the axis of rotation, “responsible” for the change of seasons on the planet (for the Earth it is 23.439281, and for Mars - 25.19, as you can see - not such a big difference ), so there is also a change of seasons on Mars - they only last twice as long (after all, the Martian year is almost 2 times longer than the earth's - 687 Earth days). There are also climatic zones, the seasons differ from hemisphere to hemisphere.

So, in the northern hemisphere, winter comes when Mars is closest to the Sun, and in the southern hemisphere, when it moves away, in summer everything happens the other way around. Therefore, winters in the northern hemisphere are shorter and warmer than in the southern, and summers are longer, but colder.

But most noticeable (at least to an observer from the ground) is the change of seasons in the polar regions covered with ice caps. They never completely disappear, but their size changes. In winter, the distance from the south pole to the border of the south polar cap is half the distance to the equator, and at the north pole - a third of this distance. With the advent of spring, the polar caps decrease, “retreating” towards the poles. At the same time, “dry ice” (frozen carbon dioxide), which makes up the upper layer of ice caps, evaporates, and in the gaseous state is carried by the wind to the opposite pole, where winter sets in at that time - and (therefore, the cap grows at the opposite pole).

On Earth, being interested in the weather forecast, we first of all ask ourselves the question: will it rain? So, on Mars you can not be afraid of rain - at such a low atmospheric pressure, water in a liquid state cannot exist. But snow does happen. So, the snow fell on Mars in 1979 in the landing area of ​​the Viking-2 spacecraft, and did not melt for quite a long time - several months.

In lowlands, at the bottom of craters and canyons, there is often fog during the cold hours of the day, and the water vapor present in the atmosphere forms clouds.

But what we should be wary of on Mars (if we ever go there) is hurricane winds, tornadoes and dust storms. Wind speeds of up to 100 m/s are common on Mars, and due to the low gravity, the winds raise a huge amount of dust into the air.

The largest dust storms originate in the southern hemisphere of Mars in the spring (when the planet warms up quickly) - and can drag on for a long time and cover vast territories. So, from September 1971 to January 1972, a dust storm raged on Mars, engulfing the entire planet - about a billion tons of dust was raised to a 10-kilometer height. This storm almost disrupted the mission of the Mariner 9 spacecraft - due to the dense dust veil, the surface of the planet was impossible to observe. The Mariner's computer had to delay photography (and still no one could vouch for success - it was impossible to predict when the storm would stop).

There are also "dust devils" on Mars - whirlwinds that raise dust and sand into the air. On Earth, such a phenomenon occurs in deserts, but Mars is the entire desert, and such a dusty whirlwind can occur anywhere.

As you can see, the climate of Mars is really not very favorable. And in order for “apple trees to bloom” there, one will either have to change the planet very much, or wait until nature does it ... In any case, mass settlement of Mars is unlikely to take place in the foreseeable future.

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.

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