HOPE: one year at MARS

After 12 months spent observing the Martian atmosphere with its Hope probe, the United Arab Emirates has released a global map of the planet

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On 9 February 2021, the Hope Emirates Mars mission - the first interplanetary mission from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) - arrived at the Red Planet.

The objective of the mission is to study the atmosphere's variability for a full Martian year - two Earth years, says Hessa Al Matroushi, science lead on Hope. The maps we have from other missions to Mars have gaps in them. There would be measurements of the planet, say, two times a day and you'd have to predict what's happening in between - that's not accurate. Hope looks at the whole planet, surveying different layers of the atmosphere at different times of day, so we get full coverage. This is something that hasn't been done before with such accuracy.

Hope began science observations in May 2021 and the team has now released the first set of maps from its Atlas of Mars, tracking atmospheric and temperature changes during the day. This main science phase is set to cover one Martian year, giving a full picture of the Red Planet's atmosphere.