Mars Orbiter Spots Green Glow over Red Planet
Phoenix666 writes:
Mars orbiter spots green glow over Red Planet:
"Previous observations hadn't captured any kind of green glow at Mars, so we decided to reorient the UVIS nadir channel to point at the 'edge' of Mars, similar to the perspective you see in images of Earth taken from the ISS," says Ann Carine Vandaele, co-author of the study.
The team studied the atmosphere from this angle many times for more than seven months, scanning different altitudes between 20 and 400 km (12.4 and 248.5 mi) above the surface twice every four-day orbit. The green emission, produced by oxygen, was present in all cases.
"The emission was strongest at an altitude of around 80 km (49.7 mi) and varied depending on the changing distance between Mars and the Sun," says Vandaele.
On closer examination, it appears that the green glow in this case mostly comes from oxygen that's produced when carbon dioxide is split by solar radiation.
When the Martian Senate failed to pass the mandate for catalytic converters, this outcome was inevitable.
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.