On June 1st, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spotted a dust storm getting dangerously close to the Red Planet. After getting bigger and bigger, the storm has come to encompass the whole planet, disturbing the activity of the rovers. Now, whenever researchers are using their telescopes to look at Mars, they cannot see it because of the massive layers of dust around it.
The dust storm quickly expanded all over the planet
When the dust storm hit Mars, it had already reached a considerable size and, since then, it only kept expanding. Only a week after that, the formation was already as big as North America. Shortly afterwards, it had already gotten double.
Since then, it only kept growing until it became a global event. Therefore, the dust storm now surrounds the entire planet of Mars, just like it happened in 2001 and 2007. However, back then, these phenomena didn’t disturb any other activity on the planet, since there were no rovers on its surface.
Curiosity might help researchers unveil the mystery of Martian dust storms
Meanwhile, two important rovers appeared on the Martian surface. One of them is the renowned Curiosity, while the second is the less popular Opportunity. However, the latter is quite in a serious situation right now, as its location has been one of the first victims of the dust storm.
The layer of dust covering the atmosphere is so thick that no sunlight reaches Opportunity. The rover is solar powered, so this means it cannot function until the dust storm is over. Fortunately, Curiosity doesn’t have such struggles. It uses nuclear power, so it means it can continue its observations. The conditions are unfriendly for it as well, but it can still work.
Researchers are seeing the best part of this dust storm. Since Curiosity is still functional, it can help them find out more about such storms on Mars. They are quite common on the planet, but only few get so big that they encompass the whole planet. By using the rover’s observations, they might find out why this happens.
Image source: Wikimedia Commons