SETI public: Fw: Cornell News: Northeast colder than Mars

• Previous message: Mike M.: "SETI public: Remarks by the President on U.S. Space Policy"

----- Original Message -----
From: cunews_at_cornell.edu
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 6:04 PM
To: CUNEWS-CLIMATE-L_at_cornell.edu; CUNEWS-CAMPUS-L_at_cornell.edu; CUNEWS-SCIENCE-L_at_cornell.edu
Subject: Cornell News: Northeast colder than Mars

Temperature for Mars rover at lunchtime: 12 degrees; temperature in
U.S. Northeast: minus 13 to 9 degrees

FOR RELEASE: Jan. 14, 2004

Contact: Blaine P. Friedlander Jr.
Office: 607-255-3290
E-mail: bpf2_at_cornell.edu

ITHACA, N.Y. -- During the most recent early afternoon on Mars, the
temperature at the rover Spirit landing site in Gusev crater was an
admittedly chilly minus 11 degrees Celsius (12 degrees Fahrenheit).
But it was still warmer than most cities in the upper Northeast,
gripped in a frigid winter chill.

The rover's Mini-TES instrument (for miniature thermal emission
spectrometer) made the precise measurement of the landing-site
temperature, at about three feet from the surface, at 1:15 p.m. Mars
time, according to mission science team member Michael Smith of the
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Mars is 1.5 times farther from the
sun than Earth.

   It is day on Mars when it is night in most of the United States.
But around the same time, at 1 p.m. today (Jan. 14), temperatures in
the Northeast ranged from minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit in Caribou,
Maine, to 9 degrees in Providence, R.I. Rochester, N.Y., was
considerably colder than Gusev crater, at 3 degrees, according to
Keith Eggleston, senior climatologist at Cornell University's
Northeast Regional Climate Center. There were lunchtime subzero
temperatures in Albany, N.Y., Syracuse, N.Y., Concord, N.H., and
Burlington and Montpelier, Vt.

However, the Mars landing site, where it is late summer, cooled off
considerably in the evening, reaching an estimated low temperature of
minus 90 Celsius (minus 130 Fahrenheit), said Smith.

Commented Eggleston, "Well, for the Northeast, that record will be a
little harder to break."

Temperature at 1 p.m., Jan. 14 (Note: this table will line up in a
fixed-width font such as Courier)

Location Temp. (Fahrenheit)
Gusev crater, Mars 12
Providence, R.I. 9
Scranton Wilkes-Barre, Pa. 8
Hartford, Conn. 7
Buffalo, N.Y. 7
Rochester, N.Y. 3
Ithaca, N.Y. 3
Albany, N.Y. -2
Binghamton, N.Y. -2
Concord, N.H. -3
Syracuse, N.Y. -4
Burlington, Vt. -10
Montpelier, Vt. -12
Caribou, Maine -13
Mount Washington, N.H. -36
-30-

The web version of this release may be found at
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Jan04/MarsTemps.bpf.html
--

Cornell University News Service
Surge 3
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
607-255-4206
cunews_at_cornell.edu
http://www.news.cornell.edu

• Previous message: Mike M.: "SETI public: Remarks by the President on U.S. Space Policy"

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.6 : Thu Jan 15 2004 - 06:22:49 PST