MAVEN Stellar Occultation
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- Visualizations by:
- Brian Monroe
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- Scientific consulting by:
- Bruce Jakosky
- View full credits
NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission (MAVEN) is the first spacecraft specifically designed to study the upper atmosphere of Mars. MAVEN's goal is to determine how Mars lost its thick early atmosphere, and with it, its once hospitable climate.
While previous Mars orbiters have peered down at the planet's surface, MAVEN is spending part of its time gazing at the stars, observing the Martian atmosphere through a series of stellar occultations. As Mars rolls beneath MAVEN, due to the spacecraft's own orbital motion, background stars rise and set behind the planet. Their light dims as it passes through the tenuous atmosphere, with specific gases absorbing specific wavelengths. MAVEN uses its Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph to break apart this light and see which wavelengths are absorbed, allowing it to determine atmospheric composition at varying altitudes.
For More Information
See NASA.gov
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
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Animator
- Brian Monroe (USRA) [Lead]
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Scientists
- Bruce Jakosky (LASP) [Lead]
- Nick Schneider (LASP)
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Producer
- Dan Gallagher (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)
Missions
This visualization is related to the following missions:Series
This visualization can be found in the following series:Tapes
This visualization originally appeared on the following tapes:-
MAVEN Sci Early
(ID: 2015007)
Monday, March 16, 2015 at 4:00AM
Produced by - Dan Jacob