Its launch is scheduled for the fall of 2011. REMS has been developed by the Spanish Centro de Astrobiolog��a (CSIC-INTA) in collaboration with EADS-Crisa, http://www.selleckchem.com/products/epz-5676.html the Universidad Polit��cnica de Catalu?a, Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries the Finnish Meteorological Institute, the NASA Ames Research Centre, the University of Michigan, the Universidad de Alcal�� and the California Institute of Technology. REMS has been designed Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries for measuring ambient pressure, humidity, wind speed and direction, UV radiation, and air and ground temperature [3]. Specifically, the Ground Temperature Sensor (GTS) is a pyrometer designed to measure the kinematic temperature of the Martian surface.
As a result of previous NASA missions, it is well known that the average planet surface temperature on Mars is 220 K and varies widely Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries over the course of a Martian day, from 145 K during the polar night to 300 K on the equator at midday at the closest point in its orbit around the Sun, with diurnal variations of up to 80�C100 K. Near-surface atmospheric temperatures at potential landing sites (e.g., Gusev crater, Meridiani Planum) range from 173 K to 273 K. Much more recent measurements taken by Phoenix (25 May 2008) indicate that Martian regolith temperatures (polar latitudes) range from 181 K to 253 K. Additionally, Mars undergoes very extreme ground temperature gradients between the ground and the atmosphere at 1.5 m above the surface, with differences of ��40 K [4].This huge variation in diurnal temperature has a dramatic effect on static stability and hence on the dynamics of the Martian planetary boundary layer.
The thermal structure and dynamics of the atmosphere are strongly influenced by Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries the exchange of moisture, heat, mass, and momentum between the surface and atmosphere. However, the causes of many significant temperature variations still remained unexplained. For instance, when Martian surface temperatures and albedos were measured using ground-based IR spectroscopy, between September and December 1988 [5], these measurements indicated surface temperatures which seemed to be around 30 K higher than the Viking temperatures measured in 1977, and closer to the theoretical temperatures calculated from the Viking Primary Mission in 1976.Retrieval of the in-situ surface temperature of Mars is essential to develop environmental models of the Martian atmosphere-surface boundary layer [6,7].
Dacomitinib Stability, surface heat fluxes, and growth of the selleck Vandetanib atmosphere-surface mixed layer can be estimated from ground and atmospheric temperatures [8]. An important consideration related to the temperature of the Martian surface environment is that it can be influenced by different factors (among others, putative radioactive heat sources, mantle heat flow, surface temperature, thermal conductivity and, particularly, the mineralogy of the Martian regolith) [9].From a technical point of view, in-situ Martian surface ground kinematic temperature measurements can primarily be performed in two different ways.