Philip P. Ide

Author, programmer, science enthusiast, half-wit.
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blog:articles:info:mars_jly_2020

Mars July 2020

It's mid-July now, and temperatures at the InSight lander's location on Mars (south-west corner of Elysium in the northern hemisphere) are teetering on the edge and about to fall. At the end of the month - July 30th - NASA's Perseverance rover (formerly known as the Mars 2020 rover) gets its first launch opportunity. It had previously been scheduled to launch two weeks earlier but, you know, things happened.

On the 3rd August, Mars reaches Perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun. It's probably roasting down in the southern hemisphere which is currently experiencing Summer, but for InSight it's the last dregs of Autumn.

Autumn ends on 1st September, and as you might expect, it's into Winter. Martian months vary in length up to 67 sols, but the two months each side of Perihelion are the shortest at just 46 sols each.

Check the Mars Weather page and scroll down to the temperature-over-time graph to see how this uncertain time settles down into something a lot more freezer-like. At the bottom of the page you can see the current position of the planets.

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blog/articles/info/mars_jly_2020.txt · Last modified: 2020/07/20 18:09 by Phil Ide

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