Poster
P. Machado, G. Östlin
Abstract
Planet encircling dust storms on Mars are somewhat rare events that are not well constrained. The precise feedback mechanisms that allows some storms to evolve to a global scale and that eventually cuts them off along with the interannual variability of the occurrence of these storms are poorly understood (Zurek, R., 1993). Measuring wind speeds during such events is detrimental to the better comprehension of the mechanisms at play. Using ESO's VLT/UVES we were able to successfully observe the 2018 Mars global dust storm (during the month of June), and by adapting the Doppler velocimetry wind retrieval technique successfully used on Venus (Machado, P. et al., 2012), we have been able to use those high resolution observations of mars to derive Doppler shifts and as a result obtain preliminary results. This method should allow us to simultaneously characterize spatial and temporal variations of the zonal winds. Through coordinated observations with ESA's Mars Express space probe (OMEGA) we intend to constrain the altitude of our observations to somewhere in the middle atmosphere The end result we aim to obtain is a latitudinal wind profile of the middle atmosphere of Mars during the development of a global dust storm and velocity field maps that allow us to constraint the wind spatial coverage during these events.
XXIX Encontro Nacional de Estudantes de Astronomia
Lisboa, Portugal
2019 September
