First Atmospheric Temperature Profile
During a press conference on March 11, 2004, mission scientists presented the first temperature profile of the martian atmosphere ever measured. It was obtained by combining data taken from the Opportunity Mini-TES infrared spectrometer with data from the TES instrument on board the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) orbiter. This was necessary because Opportunity can only see up to 6 km high, and the MGS camera could not measure data all the way down to the ground. The data was acquired on February 15 (Sol 22) and is split into two data sets: Since the orbiter is in motion, some data was taken while it was approaching the Opportunity site, other when it was moving away. In the graph, these sets are marked "inbound" (black color) and "outbound" (red color). The dots represent Mini-TES (= rover) data and the straight lines are TES (=orbiter) data.
Atmospheric science from the MER rovers has been published in a series of scientific papers in Science and Journal of Geophysical Research
Read more about this topic: Scientific Information From The Mars Exploration Rover Mission
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