As NASA aims to collate 16 years of data on the atmosphere of Mars, and it is seeking people’s help to find clouds on the Red Planet. This data could reveal a big mystery about the planet.
NASA is counting the clouds on Mars and wants you to join them. Yes, the US space agency has embarked on a silly but extremely important project where it will analyze the data collected by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). A significant amount of data collected over a period of 16 years revolves around the Red Planet’s atmosphere. NASA is trying to figure out the reason for the low density of the Martian atmosphere and the key is cloudspotting. But here’s the challenge: the data cannot be analyzed through software and has to be sorted manually. So, if you want to help NASA develop a better understanding of Mars, you can participate and help with this project. Read on to know more about it.
In a post explaining the venture, NASA said it is inviting people to join its ‘Cloudspotting on Mars’ project, where they can identify clouds on Mars using a citizen science platform called Zooniverse. can help to do. If you are an astronomy enthusiast and have a little free time, visit this link and participate in the crowdsourced project.
NASA will study the atmosphere of Mars by uncovering the clouds
The atmosphere of Mars has always confused scientists as there is evidence that it used to be thicker in the past, currently the atmosphere of Mars is only 1% denser than that of Earth. We know that rivers and lakes once existed on the Red Planet, but today they evaporate quickly due to low air pressure. There are theories to explain this. One popular theory suggests that due to various mechanisms, all existing water was pulled high into the atmosphere where solar radiation broke it down into hydrogen and oxygen, and as hydrogen became lighter, it drifted into space.
And that’s where the project comes in. Scientists know that Mars still has clouds. Some of them are made of water ice, some are made of carbon dioxide. Understanding the formation, motion and patterns of these clouds will help scientists trace the present and past of Mars’ central atmosphere.
“We want to learn what triggers the formation of clouds — especially water ice clouds, which can teach us how high water vapor in the atmosphere can be,” said Marek Slipsky, a postdoctoral researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the South. How to get it – and in what season.” California.
