NASA began to create a lidar MARLI to study the wind speed and composition of the atmosphere on Mars and Titan. The new device will make it possible to find out the cause of the occurrence of dust storms and the scheme for the propagation of ice particles, writes EurekAlert!. The device is operated by the NASA planetary scientist Mike Smith in collaboration with his colleague Jim Abshire, a specialist in remote sensing. The main task of MARLI will be the study of vertical atmospheric movements on Mars, as well as their changes, depending on the time of day, geography and season. According to Smith, over the past decades that NASA is studying Mars, a lot of data was received, in addition to the wind speed and direction parameters. The cause of the formation of dust storms, whose speed reaches 72 km / h, is important for planning the time and place of landing of space vehicles on the surface of Mars. Lidar will work from the orbit of Mars and send laser pulses, which, reflected from clouds and dust particles, will give a complete picture of atmospheric phenomena and wind speed on the Red Planet. In general, scientists are confident that the device will work because it repeats NASA technologies already tested on the Moon, Mercury and Mars itself. Laser MARLI will be built by Fibertek, which has already created a similar device for studying the Earth's atmosphere in 2015.

The telescope receiver inherited many characteristics from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter project, and the windmill was from Tropospheric Wind Lidar Technology Experiment, which was installed on aircraft for earth exploration. With a certain upgrade, MARLI can be used to study the wind speed on the satellite of Saturn - Titan. However, the conditions there are more complicated, since the satellite has a denser atmosphere, similar to the terrestrial. The most difficult, scientists say, will deliver the device to the orbit of Mars.

Original article: NASA develops a lidar for measuring wind speed on Mars.