Mars Corona
About This Image
Caption
These are far-ultraviolet Hubble images of Mars near its farthest point from the Sun, called aphelion, on December 31, 2017 (top), and near its closest approach to the Sun, called perihelion, on December 19, 2016 (bottom). The atmosphere is clearly brighter and more extended when Mars is close to the Sun.
Reflected sunlight from Mars at these wavelengths shows scattering by atmospheric molecules and haze, while the polar ice caps and some surface features are also visible. Hubble and MAVEN showed that Martian atmospheric conditions change very quickly. When Mars is close to the Sun, water molecules rise very rapidly through the atmosphere, breaking apart and releasing atoms at high altitudes.
About The Object
- Object Name
- Mars
- Object Description
- Planet
About The Data
- Data Description
- The HST observations include those from programs 14752 (J. Clarke) and 15097 (D. Bhattacharyya)
- Instrument
- ACS
- Exposure Dates
- 19 Dec 2016 and 31 Dec 2017
- Filters
- F115LP
About The Image
- Color Info
- This image is acquired by the ACS instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope. The color results from assigning a red hue to a monochromatic (grayscale) image.
About The Object
- Object Name
- A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object.
- Object Description
- The type of astronomical object.
About The Data
- Data Description
- Proposal: A description of the observations, their scientific justification, and the links to the data available in the science archive.
- Science Team: The astronomers who planned the observations and analyzed the data. "PI" refers to the Principal Investigator.
- Instrument
- The science instrument used to produce the data.
- Exposure Dates
- The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time.
- Filters
- The camera filters that were used in the science observations.
About The Image
- Color Info
- A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented.
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