Canada is the Mars weather man

So.... been curious about Canada's involvement with the Phoenix mission on Mars. After seeing this pic I did a little googling, turns Canada is the Mars weather man. Here is what wikipedia says:

The Meteorological Station (MET) will record the daily weather during the course of the Phoenix mission. It is equipped with a wind indicator and pressure and temperature sensors. The MET also contains a lidar (laser imaging detection and ranging) device for sampling the number of dust particles in the air. It was designed in Canada and supported by the Canadian Space Agency. A team headed by York University will oversee the science operations of the station. The York University team includes contributions from the University of Alberta, University of Aarhus (Denmark), Dalhousie University, Finnish Meteorological Institute, Optech, and the Geological Survey of Canada. Canadarm maker MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. of Richmond, B.C. built the MET.

The lidar laser is a passive Q-switched Nd:YAG laser with the dual wavelengths of 1064 nm and 532 nm. It operates at 100 Hz with a pulse width of 10 ns. The lidar is vertically pointing. The scattered light is received by two detectors that operate in both analog and photon counting modes.

The lidar detects multiple types of backscattering (for example Rayleigh scattering and Mie Scattering), with the delay between laser pulse generation and the return of light scattered by atmospheric particles determining the altitude at which scattering occurs. Additional information can be obtained from backscattered light at 532 nm and 1064 nm, and such wavelength dependence may make it possible to discriminate between ice and dust, and serve as an indicator of the effective particle size.

The lidar will get information about the time-dependent structure of the planetary boundary layer by investigating the vertical distribution of dust, ice, fog and clouds in the local atmosphere. The surface wind velocity and temperatures will also be monitored over time and show the evolution of the atmosphere over the duration of the mission. Dust and ice contribution in the atmosphere and the formation of dust devils are in the science focus of the instrument.

This Lidar was successfully operated for the first time at noon on Sol 3 (May 29, 2008), recording the first surface extra-terrestrial atmospheric profile.

Cool eh!!