Mars Odyssey Encounters Polar Vortex

By:  Leonard David
space.com
26 November 2001

 HAMPTON, VIRGINIA -- NASA's Mars Odyssey has encountered a strange, unexpected phenomenon as it slips over the red planet's north polar region. An intense polar vortex has been detected, causing Mars' atmosphere to be less dense than predicted for that area.

Likened to a jet stream on Earth, the baffling high-latitude, planet-circling vortex is being carefully eyed by scientists. Data gleaned by Odyssey shows a colder region over Mars' north pole, said Michelle Munk, flight mechanics engineer for the Langley Odyssey team.

"The polar vortex has given us some excitement in terms of seeing a different density profile [of the atmosphere] than our computer models predicted at the outset," Munk said.

"We're right were we want to be," Lockwood told SPACE.com. "We're taking small steps, closer and closer into the atmosphere. It's designed to be conservative, moving toward the corridor Odyssey needs to be in for main phase aerobraking," she said.

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