What is the warmest place on Mars?

Question

What is the warmest place on the Martian surface? What temperatures are seen there? (day, night, seasons, etc.)

I am asking about weather; not anything out of the ordinary such as a volcano.

"...not anything out of the ordinary such as a volcano" or a toasty RTG :-) — uhoh, Feb 11 '23 at 06:28

score 11 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 04 '18 at 04:46

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This is a bit tricky to answer, as we don't have perfect global weather from Mars. But as can be seen from the images at this site, it will be a low lying area near the the equator. If I had to venture, I would say the sourthern part of Syrtis Major, but I haven't seen a high enough detailed graph to definitively answer this question.

answered Feb 04 '18 at 04:46

PearsonArtPhoto

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On that site, where the image above comes from, it is mentioned that 'Lowland climates are characterized by frequent fog, having a brighter average albedo'.Doesn't that mean that a low lying area like Valles Marineres will be colder than the surrounding area ? – Cornelis Feb 17 '18 at 17:25
Just more moisture. – PearsonArtPhoto Feb 17 '18 at 19:10
Cannot the question be answered because there are no local data from orbiters around Mars ? – Cornelis Feb 20 '18 at 09:16
@Conelisinspace They provide maps like the ones I showed. From the maps, what would you say the warmest place is? – PearsonArtPhoto Feb 20 '18 at 10:47
Yes, the low albedo tropical of Syrtis Major ! But i'm curious about specific places like the inside of minor craters. , so to say a little more detailed information. – Cornelis Feb 20 '18 at 13:42
Why is the southern hemisphere warmer than north? (the 'hot' zones reach farther away from 0° downwards than upwards) Could the measurements just be from a specific time of year, and are subject to oscillations, or is that actually the case? – Speedphoenix Aug 18 '20 at 10:44
I'm not actually sure. That would make a pretty good question! – PearsonArtPhoto Aug 18 '20 at 15:06

Cornelis · Answer 2 · 2021-02-17T18:30:04.797

What is the warmest place on Mars during the night ?

Probably Badwater crater (32.8S,62.1E) in the Hellas basin.

A part of its floor has the lowest elevation on Mars of about - 8200 m ! (measured with Mars Trek)

So it has the highest concentration of CO₂ and thus the warmth of the Sun during a southern summer day will be kept there the best at night ?

Plate 12 of this article shows that near the northern rim of the Hellas basin there are the highest global nighttime temperatures.

Correction:
From A GLOBAL MAP OF THERMAL INERTIA FROM MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR MAPPING-MISSION DATA:

Hellas, which exhibited high thermal inertias in previous TES maps, is now lower as a result of eliminating high dust opacity data,...

Figure 1 of that article shows that the Hellas basin is not the only region with high nighttime temperatures.
Also,it has been suggested that Badwater crater could be the warmest place because of the greenhouse effect, but the atmosphere of Mars is just too thin to have such an effect.

In Global distribution of bedrock exposures on Mars using THEMIS high-resolution thermal inertia 960 instances of very high thermal inertia regions on Mars were obtained.
Among the regions that are situated along -24$^\circ$ latitude should be the ones with the highest nighttime temperatures because there, in southern summer, Mars is closest to the Sun.
Figure 1 of Rock abundance on Mars from the Thermal Emission Spectrometer shows that the max. nighttime temperature in those regions with very high thermal inertia can be about -60$^\circ$C.

But Hella's Basin isn't in the equatorial region-- there are equator-based craters that are relatively the same depth. I don't think it'd be heated up as much as a location like Syrtis. — Magic Octopus Urn, Aug 08 '18 at 13:53
@MagicOctopusUrn Yes, at daytime Syrtis will be heated up more, but since it's elevation is about +2000 meters, at night it will cool down extremely and probably more than in Badwater crater.Of course, i can't prove this ! I don't think you can find equator-based craters that have altitudes of minus 8000 meters. — Cornelis, Aug 08 '18 at 14:28
@MagicOctopusUrn On the whole, i agree that craters like Mojave and Gale are among the best places on Mars to be ! — Cornelis, Aug 08 '18 at 16:23

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 20 '18 at 20:53

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Depends upon the time of day. Highest temperature ever measured is at the summit of Arsia Mons, about 305 Kelvin (89 F), but it drops below 150 K (-190F) every night.

answered Feb 20 '18 at 20:53

Hugh Kieffer

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Interesting, can you quote a source for the temperature data? – Oscar Lanzi Jan 08 '21 at 13:43

score 1 · Answer 4 · edited Feb 08 '23 at 20:43

During summer on the equators it can get as high as 25 degrees Celsius (70 degrees F). https://www.weather.gov/fsd/mars theres a bit of information here.

Atmosphere and Weather: The Martian atmosphere is composed primarily of carbon dioxide. However unlike Venus, the Mars atmosphere is very thin, subjecting the planet to a bombardment of cosmic rays and producing very little greenhouse effect. Mariner 4, which flew by Mars on July 14, 1965, found that Mars has an atmospheric pressure of only 1 to 2 percent of the Earth's. Temperatures on Mars average about -81 degrees F. However, temperatures range from around -220 degrees F. in the wintertime at the poles, to +70 degrees F. over the lower latitudes in the summer.

What is the warmest place on Mars?

4 Answers4