These pages chronicle the work and ruminations of Carolyn Collins Petersen, also known as TheSpacewriter.

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I am CEO of Loch Ness Productions. I am also a producer for Astrocast.TV, an online magazine about astronomy and space science.

For the past few years, I've also been a voice actor, appearing in a variety of productions. You can see and hear samples of my work by clicking on the "Voice-Overs, Videos and 'Casts tab.

My blog, TheSpacewriter's Ramblings, is about astronomy, space science, and other sciences.

Ideas and opinions expressed here do not represent those of my employer or of any other organization to which I am affiliated. They're mine.

Visit my main site at: TheSpacewriter.com.

**Comments are welcome; I do moderate them to weed out spam.

Contact me for writing and voice-over projects at: cc(dot)petersen(at)gmail(dot)com

I Twitter as Spacewriter

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A Cloudy Day on Mars…

August 30, 2006 at 10:11 am | Leave a Comment

I’m working on a new show about Mars and thus have become a “sink” for Mars info. Humans have a record number of spacecraft at or on the planet right now, and getting images every few days or so from one or the other of them is like having a webcam on the red planet. The latest picture is something of a “weather report,” showing high, thin clouds that are pretty rare at the altitudes they’ve been found over the Martian surface.

Mars clouds as seen by Mars Pathfinder

What’s the scoop here? Back in 1997, the Mars Pathfinder rover snapped an image of wispy looking clouds at Mars. The big mystery was, since most clouds seemed to be closer to the Martian surface, what were these high fliers and how did they form?

Astronomers using the European Space Agency’s SPICAM instrument (an infrared spectrometer that measures what the clouds do to starlight as it passes through them) actually found a NEW layer of high, thin clouds at Mars. They seem to be made of carbon dioxide crystals that exist 80 to 100 kilometers (50 to 60 miles) up in the already thin carbon-dioxide atmosphere. You can read more details about the SPICAM findings here.

Why the interest in clouds? Although many images we see are of ground formations (craters, dunes, canyons, and volcanoes) on Mars, the atmosphere is an equally important component of the planet. Among other things, if you study the atmosphere for a long-enough time, you can build up a seasonal picture of change in the different atmospheric layers. It’s also important to know atmospheric density, since this affects the entry of spacecraft into the planet’s atmosphere.

I often wonder what future Mars explores will do with all this data we’re collecting today. Surely it will help refine their exploration routes and approaches. I wish we’d get there soon, so I can find out!

This blog a wholly pwnd subsidiary of Carolyn Collins Petersen, a.k.a. TheSpacewriter.
Copyright 2008, Carolyn Collins Petersen
Inama Nushif!
Image of Horsehead Nebula: T.A.Rector (NOAO/AURA/NSF) and Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA/NASA)

“It is by Coffee alone I set my day in motion. It is by the juice of bean that coffee acquires depth, the tongue acquires taste, the taste awakens the body. It is by Coffee alone I set my day in motion.”

TheSpacewriter

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A Cloudy Day on Mars…