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Mars' cloudy sky as seen by Perseverance rover in 2023, sol 738.. The climate of Mars has been a topic of scientific curiosity for centuries, in part because it is the only terrestrial planet whose surface can be easily directly observed in detail from Earth with help from a telescope.
The atmosphere of Mars is colder than Earth’s owing to the larger distance from the Sun, receiving less solar energy and has a lower effective temperature, which is about 210 K (−63 °C; −82 °F). [2] The average surface emission temperature of Mars is just 215 K (−58 °C; −73 °F), which is comparable to inland Antarctica.
It is known that in the past, Mars has had a much more circular orbit. At one point, 1.35 million Earth years ago, Mars had an eccentricity of roughly 0.002, much less than that of Earth today. [188] Mars's cycle of eccentricity is 96,000 Earth years compared to Earth's cycle of 100,000 years. [189]
A first attempt at a Mars general circulation model was created by Leovy and Mintz who used an Earth model and adapted it to Martian conditions. This preliminary model had the capability to predict atmospheric condensation of carbon dioxide and the presence of transient baroclinic waves in the winter mod-latitudes. [ 4 ]
The average surface pressure on Mars is 0.6-0.9 kPa, compared to about 101 kPa for Earth. This results in a much lower atmospheric thermal inertia, and as a consequence Mars is subject to strong thermal tides that can change total atmospheric pressure by up to 10%. The thin atmosphere also increases the variability of the planet's temperature.
Temperatures on Mars from REMS on the Curiosity Rover (August 16/17, 2012). Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) is a weather station on Mars for Curiosity rover contributed by Spain and Finland. [1] [2] REMS measures humidity, pressure, temperature, wind speeds, and ultraviolet radiation on Mars. [3]
Mars has an axial tilt of 25.19°, similar to Earth's 23.44°. As a result, Mars has seasons much like Earth, though on average they last nearly twice as long because the Martian year is about 1.88 Earth years. Mars' temperature regime is more similar to Earth's than to any other planet's in the solar system.
The maximum angular separation of the Earth and Moon varies considerably according to the relative distance between the Earth and Mars: it is about 25′ when Earth is closest to Mars (near inferior conjunction) but only about 3.5′ when the Earth is farthest from Mars (near superior conjunction). For comparison, the apparent diameter of the ...