Russian and foreign planetary scientists have created the first climate model to predict the typical weather on Mars during summer and winter, using data from the Mars-Express probe, according to an article published in JGR: Planets.
“Our model describes the three-dimensional movements of air masses in the planet's atmosphere, the transfer of solar and infrared radiation, phase transitions of water, as well as the microphysics of Martian clouds, which plays a key role in the water cycle on the planet,” says Alexander Rodin, planetary scientist at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, whose words leads the press service of the university.
Under the iron clouds of Mars
Mars, along with Earth and Titan, is one of the few planets in the solar system that has "full" seasons, a complex cycle of water and other volatiles, and associated erosion forces. In recent years, following the discovery of traces of fresh water and other essential ingredients for the birth of life, scientists are actively studying the climate of modern and ancient Mars, trying to understand where traces of Martian life may be.
As Rodin notes, scientists have long been trying to create full-fledged climatic models describing the changing seasons and the climate on the surface of Mars, but most of them give rather inaccurate predictions that do not coincide with what the Russian SPICAM device collects on board the Mars-Express probe and its analogs at other orbital stations.
The reason for this, as suggested by Russian planetary scientists, was that these models were based on misconceptions about how the water cycle on the red planet proceeds and how its molecules interact with the smallest dust particles in the atmosphere of Mars.
Analyzing the data collected with the help of SPICAM, Rodin and his colleagues drew attention to the fact that dust particles in the Martian air behave differently than on Earth, on which the calculations of their colleagues were based. In particular, they noticed that the air of the fourth planet of the solar system is dominated by not one, but two sets of dust particles, markedly different from each other in size - about 0.03 and 0.3 micrometers.
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The eternal cycle
Their presence seriously changes how clouds form and how water vapor behaves in the upper atmosphere of Mars at altitudes of 10 to 70 kilometers, which affects the amount of sunlight and heat reaching its surface and other important climatic parameters.
When scientists accounted for all these differences in the standard MAOAM model describing the climate of Mars, they were able to almost completely bring the results of calculations to what the Mars Express and other probes saw each Martian summer and winter. This for the first time allowed planetary scientists to "see" how conditions on the planet are changing during these seasons of the year, and to assess these changes in terms of the habitability of Mars.
For example, planetary scientists have found that the greatest concentration of water is reached over the North Pole at the moment when summer begins in the same hemisphere. As winter approaches, the density of water vapor gradually decreases, which may indicate condensation of water and precipitation on the planet's surface.
In addition, physicists similarly calculated the density and distribution in the atmosphere of clouds consisting of microscopic ice crystals. It turned out that the greatest amount of ice was contained over the equatorial regions of the planet during the summer, at the same time when the maximum amount of water was observed at the North Pole.
These data, as Rodin and his colleagues hope, will help Russian scientists and their foreign colleagues understand where the most favorable conditions for life have developed on Mars, which will help to find the ideal place to search for its traces during subsequent robotic or manned expeditions to the red planet.
