Donald Savage Headquarters, Washington, DC May 20, 1997 (Phone: 202/358-1547) Tammy Jones Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD (Phone: 301/286-5566) Ray Villard Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD (Phone: 410/338-4514) Diane Ainsworth Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA (Phone: 818/354-5011) RELEASE: 97-100 HUBBLE FINDS CLOUDY, COLD WEATHER CONDITIONS FOR MARS-BOUND SPACECRAFT As two NASA spacecraft speed toward a mid-year rendezvous with Mars, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope are providing updated planetary weather reports to help plan the missions. Hubble's new images show that the "martian invasion" of spacecraft will experience considerably different weather conditions than seen by the last U.S. spacecraft to land on Mars 21 years ago. Martian atmospheric conditions will affect the operation of both the Mars Pathfinder landing on July 4, and the September 11 arrival of the Mars Global Surveyor which will map the planet from orbit. Hubble images taken barely three weeks apart, on March 10 and March 30, reveal dramatic changes in some local conditions, and show overall cloudier and colder conditions than Viking encountered two decades ago. "Because Pathfinder uses the atmosphere to decrease its velocity for landing, and because the lander and rover are solar- powered, understanding the state of the atmosphere prior to landing is important," said Dr. Matthew Golombek, Pathfinder project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. "On July 4, Mars Pathfinder will enter the atmosphere directly from approach and slow itself behind an aeroshell with a parachute, small solid rockets and giant airbags. The lander carries a small rover to explore the surface and investigate the kinds of materials present. Hubble images of Mars are helping us to adjust our flight path for landing and effectively plan surface operations," said Golombek. "It's not the dusty Mars of the Project Viking days (mid 1970s to early 1980s) or the habitable oasis of science fiction stories," says Todd Clancy of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, CO. "We're finding a Mars that's colder, clearer, cloudier. Hubble is rapidly changing our view of Mars' environment. The planet's weather apparently has a flip-side to it." Hubble's findings also offer new insights into the differences and similarities of weather on the other terrestrial planets. "The planets are similar in many important ways, so the very major differences between them are interesting from a viewpoint of understanding meteorology better," said team leader Phil James of the University of Toledo in Ohio. "Hubble is allowing us to look at Mars in ways never before seen." In September, NASA's Mars Global Surveyor will skim across the upper martian atmosphere to slow down by friction and enter orbit around the red planet. Atmospheric density is a key factor in precisely executing this complex and delicate aerobraking maneuver. Hubble is ideal for tracking regional dust storms which could pose a threat to Surveyor by drastically changing the planet's air density. Such storms can cause a tenfold increase in the martian atmosphere's drag at 60 miles above the surface. Comparing the appearance of Mars to that in earlier spacecraft observations, Hubble has found some areas of the martian surface that have been changed dramatically by wind-blown dust. The most prominent example is the "classic dark feature" called Cerberus, which is roughly the size of California (800 by 250 miles). This feature has been seen as a low albedo (dark) region by ground-based telescopic observers since early this century, and was studied in detail by the Mariner 9 and Viking orbiters in the 1970s. In Hubble's view, only three dark splotches remain, probably related to dark sand being carried out of craters by the wind. The astronomers think that dust storms in the region have covered the formerly dark surface with bright dust, effectively erasing Cerberus from the map. Hubble is ideally suited for long-term study of Mars. When Mars has been closest to Earth, Hubble has resolved surface details as small as 25 miles across. This allows astronomers to track subtleties in the shifting cloud patterns and periodic dust storms. This planet-wide "weather satellite" view is complementary to the close-up views which will be provided by Mars Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor. The Space Telescope Science Institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. (AURA), for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). EDITOR'S NOTE: Images to accompany this release are available to news media representatives by calling the Headquarters Imaging Branch on 202/358-1900. NASA Photo numbers are: Color: Mars Clouds 97-HC-315 Color: Mars N. Pole 97-HC-316 Color: Mars 4 Sides 97-NC-317 Image files in GIF and JPEG format and captions may be accessed on Internet via anonymous ftp from oposite.stsci.edu in /pubinfo. GIF JPEG PRC97-15a Mars Clouds gif/marsbwc.gif jpeg/marsbwc.jpg PRC97-15b Mars N. Pole gif/marsnpc.gif jpeg/marsnpc.jpg PRC97-15c Mars 4 Sides gif/mars4op.gif jpeg/mars4op.jpg Higher resolution digital versions (300 dpi JPEG) of the release photographs are available in /pubinfo/hrtemp: 97-15a.jpg (color), 97-15b.jpg (color) and 97-15bbw.jpg (black & white), and 97-15c (color) and 97-15cbw.jpg (black & white). GIF and JPEG images, captions and press release text are available via the World Wide Web at http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/97/15.html and via links in: http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/Latest.html or http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/Pictures.html