This massive dust storm could engulf Mars for months

Every six to eight years, massive dust storms can cover the entire surface of Mars. NASA's Martian probes are currently watching one on the red planet. Scientists saw a small-scale dust storm start on May 30 and by June 20 it had become "global", engulfing the entire planet. For NASA's Rover Opportunity, visibility has shifted from that of a sunny day to that of a cloudy sky. Because the mobile works with solar energy, researchers have suspended it to preserve its batteries. According to NASA, this could take as long as September before the dust starts to settle in, and Opportunity starts reporting.

Meanwhile, many Mars orbiters help scientists understand the dust storm. "It's one of the most important weather events we've seen on Mars," since space ship sightings began in the 1960s, said Michael Smith, a scientist at the Goddard Spaceflight Center. from NASA. Smith and other scientists are trying to understand how small regional thunderstorms are trying to become so big. They also record how the dust storm changes atmospheric temperatures on the planet, which can change the winds, which in turn can amplify the storm by lifting more dust off the surface of the planet. "The very fact that you can start with something that is a local storm, no bigger than a small state, then trigger something that raises more dust and produces a haze that almost covers the entire planet is remarkable" , said Rich Zurek. , the project scientist for MRO, which maps the evolution of the storm every day in color images and atmospheric temperature.