A love letter to MAVEN for Valentine’s Day

February 14

It’s spring on Mars and ~~**love**~~ ozone is in the air! In the northern hemisphere, the north pole is seeing sunlight for the first time in a long time, and the magenta color indicates the presence of ozone. Ozone builds up until spring (and sunlight) arrive, warming the region and causing dynamic weather visible in the clouds. Valles Marineris is visible along the bottom edge of the image, and two tall volcanoes are visible on the left where they rise above the atmosphere. The stripes in the image are artifacts of how the observations were taken.
*Credit: MAVEN/IUVS, 23 January 2023*

To Our Dearest MAVEN,

How can we even begin to put in words how much we adore you? You’re always the romantic, carrying a ROSE (Radio Occultation Science Experiment) wherever you go. We can’t stand being SEParated from your data – it truly SWEAps us off our feet!

You are always collecting data for us to understand the evolution of Mars’ atmosphere, especially “the one that got away”. NGIMS-us goosebumps every time we learn something new about Mars. We cannot get over your MAGnetic personality and we are always ecSTATIC to see what data you collected. You are always doing deep dips into our hearts, helping us explore the Red Planet more and more.

MAVEN, you’ve taught us to be patient. Years and tears, highs and lows, long nights debugging code. All worth it to watch you, our darling MAVEN, soar off the launchpad and into the history books. Most of all, you brought us together a team that loves learning, hard work, and scientific integrity to boot! Thank you, MAVEN, and Happy Valentine’s Day.

Love,

The MAVEN Team

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