Relative humidity is a function of both temperature and water-vapour content. It began its third Martian year on 11 May this year during the mission’s 1,337th Martian day, or “sol" since landing.Įach Martian sol lasts about 39.6 minutes longer than an Earth day, and a Martian year lasts 668.6 sols, scientists said. “The water vapour content is a thousand to 10 thousand times less than on Earth," said Martinez.Įach Martian year - the time it takes the Red Planet to orbit the sun once - lasts 687 Earth days. “Mars is much drier than our planet, and in particular Gale Crater, near the equator, is a very dry place on Mars," said German Martinez from University of Michigan. Measurements of temperature, pressure, ultraviolet light reaching the surface and the scant water vapour in the air at Gale Crater show strong, repeated seasonal changes, they said.Ĭuriosity’s Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) has measured air temperatures from 15.9 degrees Celsius on a summer afternoon to minus 100 degrees Celsius on a winter night.
However, the Rover’s measurements do suggest that much subtler changes in the background methane concentration - amounts much less than during the spike - may follow a seasonal pattern, the scientists said. It was an episodic release, still unexplained. “The duration is important, because it is the second time through the seasons that lets us see repeated patterns," he said. “Curiosity’s weather station has made measurements nearly every hour of every day, more than 34 million so far," said Curiosity Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada of Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
The repetition helps distinguish seasonal effects from sporadic events.įor example, a large spike in methane in the local atmosphere during the first southern-hemisphere autumn in Gale Crater was not repeated the second autumn, they added.
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