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The weather condition on Earth can be extreme and downright monumental at times, but Mars probably has us crush. The almanac tempest season on Mars doesn't include torrential rains, but the grit storms can completely encircle the planet. Mars' electric current storm season resulted in i of these monster storms, but they all first off as small waves of dust in the sparse Martian atmosphere. The European Space Agency (ESA) merely released an epitome from earlier this year depicting the get-go stages of a Martian dust storm.

Mars has a thin atmosphere composed mainly of carbon dioxide. The planet has seasons, not unlike Earth, which expose the ice caps to more than solar energy. Equally a upshot, the atmosphere becomes thicker and more able to sweep up Martian fines. That'southward what's happening in the image higher up, which is the first of a large dust storm near the planet's northern polar region.

The prototype comes from the ESA'south Mars Express orbiter, which has been watching Mars for nigh 15 years. The probe has been so successful information technology'due south easy to about forget the loss of the Beagle 2 lander from the aforementioned mission. Scientists used the spacecraft's High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) to capture this image of the wavefront in the Utopia Planitia region in April of 2022.

This storm picked up early in the storm season for Mars, and in any other yr, information technology would exist considered rather large. Several weeks later, the current superstorm began to the southwest in the Arabia Terra region. That tempest currently covers the unabridged planet, which could spell doom for the plucky little Opportunity rover. NASA says Opportunity slipped into failsafe mode a few weeks dorsum as lite levels dropped off and the robot was no longer able to recharge its batteries.

Curiosity photo of the aforementioned drill hole before the storm and after the storm hit, showing how much light is blocked by dust storms on Mars.

Images like the 1 captured past Mars Express could help scientists understand Martian weather. The feedback loop that creates these behemothic grit storms every few years is nevertheless poorly understood. Some, like the Utopia Planitia storm, dissipate after reaching the size of a small U.s.a. country. Others, like the Arabia Terra storm, expand until they cover the unabridged surface. If humanity intends to set upwardly a permanent presence on Mars i mean solar day, knowing how to predict and mitigate Martian grit storms volition be vital.