Weather On Mars Surprisingly Warm, Curiosity Rover Finds
by SPACE.com Staff
Date: 01 October 2012 Time: 07:00 AM ET
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| This is the first 360-degree panorama in color of the Gale Crater landing site taken by NASA's Curiosity rover. The panorama was made from thumbnail versions of images taken by the Mast Camera. The images were taken late Aug. 8 PDT (Aug. 9 EDT) by the 34-millimeter Mast Camera. CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS |
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is enjoying some nice, warm weather on the Red Planet — and spring hasn't even come to its landing site yet.
Curiosity's onboard weather station, which is called the Remote Environment Monitoring Station(REMS), has measured air temperatures as high as 43 degreesFahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius) in the afternoon. And temperatures have climbed above freezing during more than half of the Martian days, or sols, since REMS was turned on, scientists said.
These measurements are a bit unexpected, since it's still late winter at Gale Crater, the spot 4.5 degrees south of the Martian equator where Curiosity touched down on Aug. 5.
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