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95_16.txt
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1996-01-12
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Don Savage
NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC
(Phone: 202-358-1547) EMBARGOED UNTIL: 2:00 P.M. EST
March 21, 1995
Tammy Jones
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
(Phone: 301-286-5566)
Ray Villard RELEASE NO: STScI-PR95-16
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD
(Phone: 410-338-4514)
HUBBLE MONITORS WEATHER ON NEIGHBORING PLANETS
"The weather on Mars: another cool and clear day. Low morning haze
will give way to a mostly sunny afternoon with high clouds. The
forecast for Venus: hot, overcast, sulfuric acid showers will
continue. Air quality is slightly improved as smog levels subside."
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is serving as an interplanetary weather
satellite for studying the climate on Earth's neighboring worlds, Mars
and Venus.
To the surprise of researchers, Hubble is showing that the Martian
climate has changed considerably since the unmanned Viking spacecraft
visited Mars in the mid-1970s, which was the last time astronomers got
a close-up look at weather on the Red Planet for more than just a few
months. Hubble images of fleecy clouds, and spectroscopic detection of
an ozone abundance in Mars' atmosphere, all indicate that the planet is
cooler, clearer and drier than a couple of decades ago.
In striking contrast, Hubble's spectroscopic observations of Venus show
that the atmosphere continues to recover from an intense bout of
sulfuric "acid rain" triggered by the suspected eruption of a volcano
in the late 1970s. This is similar to what happens on Earth when
sulfur dioxide emissions from coal power plants are broken apart in the
atmosphere to make acid rain. On Venus, this effect takes place on a
planetary scale.
Although the close-up visits by numerous unmanned spacecraft provided
brief snapshot glimpses of weather on these planets, the long-term
coverage offered by Hubble has never before been possible. Knowledge
about the weather is critical to planning future missions to these
worlds. In the case of Mars, being able to predict the weather will
be critical prior to human exploration and, perhaps eventually,
colonization.
Studying conditions on Mars and Venus might also lead to a better
understanding of Earth's weather system. Apparently, processes that
occurred early in the solar system's history sent terrestrial planets
along very different evolutionary paths. The neighboring planets are
grand natural laboratories for testing computer models that will lead
to a general theory of the behavior of planetary atmospheres.
* * * * * *
The Space Telescope Science Institute is operated by the Association of
Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. (AURA) for NASA, under
contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. The
Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation
between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).
NOTE TO EDITORS: Images associated with this release are available
electronically through Internet via World Wide Web, ftp or Gopher.
The Internet addresses are:
ftp: ftp.stsci.edu (IP address: 130.167.1.2) /pubinfo/gif
www: http://www.stsci.edu
gopher: www.stsci.edu
The image files are:
Venus95.gif Color Venus
VenusBW.gif B&W Venus
Mars95.gif Color Mars, single face
Mars95BW.gif B&W Mars, single face
Mars95-3.gif Color Mars, three faces
Mars3BW.gif B&W Mars, three faces
A Science Backgrounder entitled "Hubble Monitors Weather on Neighboring
Planets" is also available.