A large dust storm on Mars, nearly twice the size of the United States, covered the southern hemisphere of the Red Planet in early January 2022, leading to some of NASA’s explorers on the surface hitting pause on their normal activities.
“Every year there are some moderately big dust storms that pop up on Mars and they cover continent-sized areas and last for weeks at a time,” said Michael Smith, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Moreover, how frequent are dust storms on Mars?
“Once every three Mars years (about 5 ½ Earth years), on average, normal storms grow into planet-encircling dust storms, and we usually call those ‘global dust storms’ to distinguish them,” Smith said. It is unlikely that even these dust storms could strand an astronaut on Mars, however.
Mars is famous for its large, planet-wide dust storms. Mars has an atmosphere which is much thinner than the atmosphere on Earth, but which still creates winds. When these winds pick up the fine, dry particles of dust on Mars, a dust storm can occur.
What causes dust storms on mars?
All Mars dust storms are powered by sunshine. Solar heating warms the Martian atmosphere and causes the air to move, lifting dust off the ground. The chance for storms is increased when there are great temperature variations like those seen at the equator during the Martian summer.
Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey, two NASA spacecraft circling Mars, have seen many “regional storms” like the cloud near Hellas Basin now. They persist for a few days or weeks, then dissipate. Rarely do they become a planet-wide event. “Only 10 global or planet-encircling dust storms have been reported since 1877,” notes Parker.
One inquiry we ran across in our research was “Can we predict global dust storms on Mars?”.
The images were taken about a month apart. Based on a historical pattern, scientists believe they can predict the occurrence of dust storms on Mars. Global dust storms on Mars could soon become more predictable — which would be a boon for future astronauts there — if the next one follows a pattern suggested by those in the past.
Dust storms come in various shapes and sizes, but regardless of their variations, what they do is similar — they carry dust and sediment from one place to another, regardless of who or what is in their path. We have detected that you are using an ad blocker which is preventing the player to display.
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