WAA Lecture Friday, February 11 at 7:30 pm via Zoom

Diurnal, Seasonal, and Inter-Annular Variations of Gases in the Mars Atmosphere
Br. Robert Novak, PhD
Professor Emeritus, Department of Physics, Iona College

The NASA Infrared Telescope is a 3.2-meter telescope located on top of Mauna Kea (4200 m above sea level) on the Big Island of Hawaii. iSHELL is a high resolution (R > 70,000) infrared spectrometer that was installed on the telescope in September 2016. Spectral/spatial images taken by iSHELL can detect gases in Mars’s atmosphere such as water (both H2O and HDO), carbon dioxide, and methane. Searches have been conducted for other organic gases, such as ethane and propane, but up to now, only methane has been positively detected. Since January 2017, Br. Novak has taken data to measure these gases during Mars’ early northern winter (January 2017, Mars Year 33), mid-northern summer (MY 34), mid-northern winter (MY 35), and early northern spring (MY 36). He will discuss the detection and variation of these gases in the course of a day, from season to season, and from one year to the next.

Br. Robert Novak was Chair of Physics at Iona. He works with the NASA Astrobiology group at Goddard Spaceflight Center, and has published a number of important papers on the Martian atmosphere and evidence for an ocean on Mars in the distant past.