Astronomers at the Harvard Center for Astrophysics have used daily global maps from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter missions to Mars for eight years. to map nothing less than 14,974 dust storms larger than 100,000 square kilometers and lasting more than a day.
Information for future missions
In this way, an attempt has been made to analyze particularities and patterns in storms that significantly affect the transmission, thermal structure and circulation of the Martian atmosphere.
All this information is a very valuable new resource for modeling the Martian atmosphere and mission planning.
Huge dust storms, which persist for weeks and even months, obscuring the entire planet, can arise suddenly, although they are more frequent after the planet's perihelion and in the Southern Hemisphere, when it is the end of spring there, They are caused by winds of more than 150 km/h.
Just as on Earth a wind of 50 to 60 km/h is enough to raise clouds of dust, on Mars, given the tiny density of the air, only a gale of about 200 km/h can produce the same effect. These storms can reach planetary dimensions.
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The news
14,974 dust storms mapped on Mars over eight years
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.