These two views from July 2020 show the elongated cloud extending from the Arsia Mons volcano on Mars.
ESA / GCP / UPV / EHU Bilbao
In 2018, some corners of the Internet thought there could be a massive volcanic eruption on Mars, but it was a trick of the eye. ‘N Lang, dun cloud appears above the volcano Arsia Mons seasonally on Mars, and now scientists have seen better how it forms and disappears.
A team of researchers examined the cloud’s life cycle using a camera nicknamed “the Mars Webcam” on the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft.
The transient nature of the cloud and the orbits of spacecraft around Mars have made it difficult to study the formation. The Mars webcam – more formally known as the Visual Monitoring Camera – has the resolution of a 2003 webcam for computers, but it also has a wide field of view, which is why researchers are using it to study the cloud.
This GIF of Mars Express images shows the evolution of the Arsia Mons cloud. The dark area indicates night. The blue line is a boundary between night and day.
ESA / GCP / UPV / EHU Bilbao
The team published a paper in the journal JGR Planets at the end of last year.
“Many Mars orbits can only begin to observe this part of the surface until the afternoon due to the properties of their orbits, so this is really the first detailed investigation into this interesting feature,” said study co-author Agustin Sánchez-Lavega. , from the University of the Basque Country on Tuesday in a statement from the ESA.
The cloud appears during the Mars spring and can extend up to 1,800 kilometers long. “It is the largest ‘orographic’ cloud ever seen on Mars, meaning it is formed due to wind being forced upward by topographic features (such as mountains or volcanoes) on a planet’s surface,” ESA said.
The cloud is a daily growth cycle that begins before sunrise and has a rapid expansion rate from Arsia Mons. It evaporates later as the day warms up.
We get orographic clouds on Earth, but they do not reach the wild length of this one on Mars. “Understanding this cloud offers us the exciting opportunity to try to replicate cloud formation with models – models that will improve our knowledge of climate systems on both Mars and Earth,” Sánchez-Lavega said.
The Arsia Mons cloud is one of the miracles of Mars. It may be less of a mystery now, but it’s just as fascinating as ever.
Follow CNET’s 2021 space calendar to stay up to date with all the latest space news this year. You can even add it to your own Google Calendar.