Daily temperature variations at the InSight landing site
Daily temperature variations at the InSight landing site
The temperature variations on Mars are much greater than on Earth. InSight measures the thermal radiation at the landing site from the ground and from the layer of air above using the RAD radiometer, part of the DLR HP 3 experiment. Located near the equator, the high-elevation Sun heats the fine sand on the surface to above zero degrees Celsius on most days, while the thin atmosphere remains 10 to 20 degrees Celsius colder. At night, however, temperatures drop to minus 90 degrees Celsius or even lower. The gaps in the temperature curves are due to the fact that, because the operating modes are tailored to the experiment and optimised for the measurement of large temperature variations, it is not possible to measure during the switch from high to low temperature mode.
