Optical Depth
















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    The Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft (MGS) was launched in November 1996 and completed its mission in November 2006. The Thermal Emission Spectrometer was one of 5 onboard instruments. It was a thermal infrared interferometer/spectrometer with additional broadband visible and thermal channels (bolometers).

    These derived datasets span the range Ls≈104° in MY 24 to Ls≈81° in MY 27. The IR files utilize an improved retrieval for column aerosol (dust and water ice) optical depth using TES thermal IR spectra obtained in nadir viewing geometry. Compared to other published data, this approach is more physically based, allows a greater latitude range of observations to be retrieved, and enables meaningful uncertainty to be estimated for each individual retrieval.

    References See user’s guide

    Documentation The documentation consists of a user’s guide, a movie, and browse images.

    Description of the Data

    TES data were produced by the TES Science Team at Arizona State University and archived by the PDS Geosciences Node. These derived parameters are an addition to the original data set and consists of 3 data types: IR aerosol optical depth, IR aerosol optical depth maps and visible dust optical depth. The data spans 4 Martian years (M24 to M27) from 1999-02-28T21 to 2004-08-31T16 for IR data and 1999-02-28T21to 2004-08-28T08 for visible data. The user’s guide provides detailed description of the data files.

    The dataset

    Each data file is specified by a unique identifier (URN).The following indices are provided to aid in product selection.

    IR aerosol optical depth (csv)
    IR aerosol optical depth maps (csv)
    Visible dust optical depth (csv)

    Retrieving the data at the file level

    Data can be retrieved using the URNs
    Sort an index and make your selection
    Upload the URN values from your revised index (note the total uncompressed file size before requesting)

    Downloading the compressed data sets

    IR aerosol optical depthIR aerosol optical depth mapsVisible dust optical depth


    Citing datasets for publication

    Montabone, L., M. Smith, M. Wolff, and B. Cantor (2023), Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) Atmospheric Column Optical Depths for Dust and Water Ice Bundle, NASA Planetary Data System, http://doi.org/10.17189/kwez-jq47.