Atomic oxygen in Mars’ atmosphere, as seen by Al-Amal
The UAE’s Al-Amal Mars orbiter on July 19, 2021 released a new spectroscopic image, showing the global distribution of atomic oxygen in the Martian upper atmosphere.
The Emirates Ultraviolet Spectrometer (EMUS) mapped the distribution of atomic oxygen in the planet’s upper atmosphere, showing a dense patch emerging from the nightside into the new day.
The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, shows this.
Over the next two years, covering one single Martian year, Al-Amal will monitor the distribution of this oxygen to see how it fluctuations from season to season, as well as from day to day. Gather this information will help the theorists untangle the past atmospheric history of Mars.
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It looks like the UAE is doing good science with their Mars probe.
Meta-question: I understand the chemical difference between “atomic oxygen” (O) and “molecular oxygen” (O2), but what’s the practical difference?
What are the units? How does this differ from Earth? Do we even have atomic oxygen in our atmosphere? Links are great answers.
markedup2–
the short answer is–atomic oxygen is more reactive than molecular oxygen, in general, and especially in ‘atmospheres.’ It readily combines with itself and most everything else at a wide range of temperature & pressure.
(chemistry & physics– has to do with the electron orbits and energy-states)
On Earth it no longer makes a practical difference, essentially all oxygen is now molecular oxygen.
(oxygen was once a toxic ‘pollutant’ on Earth)
3 page PDF (hotlink)
“Energetic and Chemical Reactivity of Atomic & Molecular Oxygen
https://three.jsc.nasa.gov/articles/RadChemO2Sidebar.pdf