Hot, sunny weather on Mars could spell disaster for future missions

In 1971, NASA’s Mariner 9 spacecraft arrive on Mars only to find the planet’s surface completely obscured from view, hidden under a layer of dust that had been kicked up by a massive storm. Mars’ infamous dust storms periodically engulf the entire planet, with small particles spreading across the surface at a dizzying rate.

Storms from other worlds threaten missions to Mars when dust clings to the surface of robotic explorers on the Red Planet, sometimes causing their premature deaths. A team of planetary scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder may have discovered the factors that lead to a giant dust storm on Mars, which can often begin with a seemingly pleasant Martian day. The findings were presented Tuesday at the American Geophysical Union meeting in Washington and could have important implications for future human missions to Mars.

Using observations from NASA’s Reconnaissance Orbiter, the scientists behind the new findings were able to identify weather patterns that may underlie about two-thirds of major dust storms on Mars. The team found that warm, sunny weather can contribute to triggering dust storms.

The Mars Climate Sounder instrument aboard the Reconnaissance Orbiter has been collecting data about the planet’s atmosphere and terrain for the past 15 years. Scientists pored over the data looking for periods of unusual heat, when more sunlight filters through Mars’ thin atmosphere and warms the planet’s surface. They found that about 68% of large storms on Mars were preceded by a sharp rise in surface temperatures.

Although it is difficult to demonstrate a direct correlation between hot, sunny days on Mars, which are often followed by dusty conditions a few weeks later, similar conditions can cause storms on Earth. “When the surface warms, the layer of atmosphere just above it becomes buoyant and can rise, taking dust with it,” said Heshani Pieris, a graduate student in CU Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, and lead author. of the new study, said in a statement. “It’s almost as if Mars had to wait for the air to clear enough to form a big dust storm.”

Storms on Mars can sometimes be large enough to be seen by telescopes on Earth. Relatively large storms arise on Mars every year, covering large areas of the planet and lasting for weeks at a time. Beyond moderate annual storms, however, a storm will form around the planet every three Martian years (5.5 years on Earth), according to POT.

Those bad boys are the ones we need to worry about. In June 2018, a massive dust storm covered the Opportunity rover’s solar panels, forcing NASA to say goodbye to its Martian robot. As NASA plans to take astronauts to Mars by 2030, the planet’s dust storms could pose a risk to human missions. That’s why scientists are studying the causes of these dust storms to improve predictions of when they might occur.

“We need to understand what causes some of the smaller or regional storms to become global-scale storms,” ​​said Paul Hayne, associate professor in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at CU Boulder and co-author of the study. a statement. “We don’t even fully understand the basic physics of how dust storms start on the surface.”

The team behind the new study will continue to reconstruct weather patterns on Mars that can lead to giant storms. “This study is not the end of Mars storm prediction,” Pieris said. “But we hope it’s a step in the right direction.”