GEO 330 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Giovanni Schiaparelli, Christiaan Huygens, Radio Science
30 Jan 2018
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Document Summary
The bright regions of mars are dusty while the dark regions are basaltic. The radius of mars is roughly half that of earth while its gravity is 3. 7m/s2. The atmospheric pressure is roughly 0. 6% of the earth"s. Atmospheric opacity increases substantially from the mean during global dust storms. Surface temperatures vary with time of day, season, albedo, thermal inertia, slope, and latitude. Diurnal temperature plots show changes in surface temperature with variable latitudes as well as the changes in surface temperature with variable thermal inertia. Thermal inertia is the ability of a material to retain heat. Rocky materials have higher ti than sandy or dusty material. Ther(cid:373)al i(cid:374)ertia i = (cid:894)k c(cid:895)1/2 k = thermal conductivity. Since diurnal curves vary with ti, if you can measure the surface temperature at several times per day, you can model the diurnal temperature curve, estimate the ti, and hence, the physical nature of the surface!
