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The Heat Below

This graph shows that the air 30 meters above the surface of Mars at Gusev Crater, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit's landing site, is hotter and fluctuates in temperature to a larger degree than the air higher up at 500 meters.
PIA05271
Credits: NASA/JPL/Cornell/ASU
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Description

This graph shows that the air 30 meters above the surface of Mars at Gusev Crater, Mars Exploration Rover Spirit's landing site, is hotter and fluctuates in temperature to a larger degree than the air higher up at 500 meters. These data, acquired by the rover's miniature thermal emission spectrometer, help scientists understand how the bottom layer of air closest to the surface behaves and interacts with global winds.