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From: Ron Baalke <baalke@z...>
Date: Fri Jan 16, 2004 4:26 am
Subject: Temperature for Mars Rover at Lunchtime: 12 Degrees F

http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Jan04/MarsTemps.bpf.html

Cornell news release

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@c...

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

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