Find Clouds on Mars to Help NASA Scientists By spotting clouds in data collected by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the public can increase scientists’ understanding of the Red Planet’s atmosphere. NASA scientists hope to crack a fundamental mystery about Mars’ atmosphere, and you can help. Th
that invites the public to identify Martian clouds using the citizen science platform Zooniverse. The data may help researchers figure out why the planet’s atmosphere is just 1% as dense as Earth’s, despite ample evidence that suggests the planet used to have a much thicker atmosphere.
How did Mars lose its atmosphere over time? According to one theory, different mechanisms could be lofting water high into the atmosphere, where solar radiation breaks those water molecules down into hydrogen and oxygen . Hydrogen is light enough that it could then drift off into space. Like Earth, Mars has clouds composed of water ice. But unlike Earth, it also has clouds made of carbon dioxide , which form when it gets cold enough for the Martian atmosphere to freeze locally. By understanding where and how these clouds appear, scientists hope to better understand the structure of Mars’ middle atmosphere, which is about 30 to 50 miles in altitude.
That’s where Cloudspotting on Mars comes in. The project revolves around a 16-year record of data from the agency’s, which has been studying the Red Planet since 2006. The spacecraft’s Mars Climate Sounder instrument studies the atmosphere in infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye. In measurements taken by the instrument as MRO orbits Mars, clouds appear as arches.
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