The Herschel-SPIRE submillimetre spectrum of Mars

TL;DR

This paper presents the first continuous submillimetre spectrum of Mars from 450 to 1550 GHz obtained with Herschel-SPIRE, enabling new insights into Martian surface and atmospheric composition.

Contribution

It introduces a novel observation mode for Herschel-SPIRE to measure Mars's spectrum and details the calibration and data reduction techniques used.

Findings

Successful use of 'bright source' mode for Mars observation

Detection of characteristic CO and H2O transitions in the spectrum

Matching observed absorption features with specific atmospheric mixing ratios

Abstract

We have obtained the first continuous disk averaged spectrum of Mars from 450 to 1550 Ghz using the Herschel-SPIRE Fourier Transform Spectrometer. The spectrum was obtained at a constant resolution of 1.4 GHz across the whole band. The flux from the planet is such that the instrument was operated in "bright source" mode to prevent saturation of the detectors. This was the first successful use of this mode and in this work we describe the method used for observing Mars together with a detailed discussion of the data reduction techniques required to calibrate the spectrum. We discuss the calibration accuracy obtained and describe the first comparison with surface and atmospheric models. In addition to a direct photometric measurement of the planet the spectrum contains the characteristic transitions of 12CO from J 5-4 to J 13-12 as well as numerous H2O transitions. Together these allow the comparison to global atmospheric models allowing the mean mixing ratios of water and 12CO to be investigated. We find that it is possible to match the observed depth of the absorption features in the spectrum with a fixed water mixing ratio of 1 x 10-4 and a 12CO mixing ratio of 9 x 10-4