Astronomy 110 - The Solar System Lab 8 - Exploring Mars Mars is by far the most

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Astronomy 110 - The Solar System Lab 8 - Exploring Mars Mars is by far the most studied planet other than Earth in the solar system. Mars is close enough for early telescopes to be able to make out features, such as the ice caps and dark patches. Percival Lowell (discoverer of Pluto) swore he could observe canals on the surface, which lead to an explosion in science fiction stories involving “Martians.” Venus, our other nearest neighbor is a cloud covered world that doesn’t allow us to study the surface very easily. We can only learn about its surface features using radar and a few Russian probes that made it into the atmosphere. Furthermore, it is incredibly hot on Venus due to high concentrations of greenhouse gases. Russia made several attempts to study Venus, managing to drop a probe that lasted two hours before the heat melted its components. Mars is much easier to study than Venus. Having an atmosphere only 1% the thickness of Earth and 60 times less dense (dashing realistic hopes of colonizing Mars). Mars is not too hot and has almost no cloud cover (though sometimes the whole planet can be covered in a global dust storm). The thin atmosphere and more manageable temperatures allow us to send probes and rovers to Mars, which can function quite well on the martian terrain. Procedure Open Google Earth. On the top menu, select View ! Explore ! Mars or you can click the planet symbol at the top of the viewing window. You should now see Mars instead of Earth. It may seem a little bit pixelated. This is because the images are built up from many dierent high-definition cameras. Getting Started First, practice zooming in and out by either using a scroll wheel on a mouse. a trackpad, or the bar on the right side of the screen (outline fills in when you hover over it).You should also click on Mars and spin it around to get used to that functionality. Notice that there is a compass in the upper tight with an “N” symbol. If you click on the symbol, it will always re-align Mars such that north will be up. Second, zoom in enough such that Mars does not fit in the entire screen. If you look on the bottom, you’ll see latitude and longitude coordinates as well as the elevation. We will be using these values periodically throughout the lab. Finally, lets look at some map options. We will be switching between these maps quite a bit. On the bottom left there will be a menu called “Layers.” In that menu, you’ll see an option called “Global Maps.” Click on the arrow next to it to show all the options. The “Vis- ible Imagery” map is usually the default. Below is a description of the maps we will be using: Visible Imagery - A composite of many dierent images from the viking orbiter and the Mars Global Surveyor. We will use this mainly for our visible viewer. Colorized Terrain - An elevation map of Mars. We will be using this map quite a bit. Daytime Infrared - Heated objects appear brighter on infrared cameras. This is use- ful for showing more details you might not see in regular color. For example, volcanic dust is made up of basalts that are dark in color. Basalts absorb more heat during the day and will show as bright regions on an infrared map Viking Color Imagery - Composed of thousands of viking orbiter images, this map is useful for looking at global features because it isn’t as banded as the composite Visible Im- agery map. Now that we are aware of all these features, lets begin. Click on the circle next to “Colorized Terrain.” Notice the elevation bar on the left of the viewing window. The tallest features will be white, surrounded by red, while the lowest features will be blue surrounded by green. With Mars entirely in the viewing window, spin it around a little bit, you should notice that half of Mars is separated into two distinct color groupings. 1) List these color groupings AND whether they are above or below 0 km in elevation. In general, a region that has more impact craters indicates an older surface. 2) Examine the regions you listed above, which region is older, the higher-elevation or the lower-elevation? 3) Use your observations from 1 and 2 to form a hypothesis as to why Mars has these two dierent regions (there is no right answer, just give a reasonable answer) Use the elevation map to find Olympus Mons, the tallest volcano in the solar system. 4) Move your curser around near the peak and list the highest elevation you find. 5) Using your result from 4, how many times taller is Olympus Mons that Mt Raineer (14,409 ft)? The ruler button on the the top of the screen allows you to measure distances. 6) Use the ruler tool to measure the diameter of Olympus Mons base and write down your result in kilometers. Now switch over to the Earth view (the same way you did initially to switch to Mars view. Find the state of Washington. 7) Use the ruler tool to measure the widths of Washington in kilometers: i) W ! E: ii) N ! S: 8) Would Olympus Mons fit completely inside the state of Washington? Switch back to the view of Mars. Make sure it is still colorized terrain. Look for a huge blue spot surrounded by orange and red, this is called Hellas Planitia (zoom in until the name appears to be sure). 9) Using elevation data and the ruler tool, estimate the following data for Hellas Plani- tia: i) Lowest elevation - ii) Elevation of surrounding (orange) terrain - iii) Width - 10) How do you suppose this geological feature was formed?

Explanation / Answer

Answer:1

The two groups of colour are blue and red, blueish area is less than 0km elevation whereas and redish area is greater than 0 km elevation.

Answer:2

Since redish area having more craters, therefore higher elevation is more older than lower elevation.

Answer:3

Mars have these two reasons because differentiation of craters on the planet. High elevated places have more craters than low elevated regions.

Olympus mons is 21 km elevated volcano.

Answer:4

We found 21km, 18km, 15km, 9km, 6km and 3km elevated region and 21 km highest elevated region.

Answer:5

68897.6 feet is the elevation of the olympus mons and 14,409 feet is the elevation of mount raineer. And it is 4.7 times taller than Mt Raineer.

Answer:6

81.64 km is the daimeter of the olympus mons.

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