[X] My Assistant

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

...or at least those on Monday -- which is to say most of the important ones, dealing specifically with the latest results from ER and Mars Express. I've gotten another assignment from "Astronomy" to do a one-page piece on each of those subjects. (I would have loved to hang around for the remainder of the meeting to cover the Saturn and Titan meetings in particular -- but, alas I wasn't offered enough to even cover my motel expenses for that, since those meetings are spread across three more days. I do, however, intend to take careful note of the Saturn and Titan posters available on the first day.)

It's awfully late for me to give you this news -- but does anyone have any particular questions you'd like me to look into while I'm there?

[edstrick]

http://ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/Mars_t...aphy_from_MOLA/

I stand corrected on the topography. This is in the eastern part of the Labrynthus where the large open end of the Valles Marineris is below datum. The larger image (of the labrynthus) is oriented with south up, and the densest appearing clouds (on the right) are over terrain near the zero datum and a bit higher.

Note that because of the low atmosphere pressure, air temperatures are strongly decoupled from surface temperatures. Afternoon atmosphere temperatures a few meters above the surface are something like a few tens of degrees cooler than the surface. Note that that 20 deg C surface is the Martian equivalent of the "Sidewalk you can fry an egg on" and corresponds to dark material in full early afternoon sun.

These images were taken during the morning with oblique illumination providing good relief information, and surface temperatures will be much colder than the maximum.

Also, my impression of the images is that the cloud's optical depth is near one or a bit higher, max of maybe 2 in the densest regions. I'd need the original data well processed to be sure, but my impression is the surface of the valley bottoms is visible in most areas, though at low contrast.