Astronomers have been studying the storm on Mars for quite some time. This yellow cloud dust storm on Mars was first spotted by NASA experts on 1870’s.
There are some particular seasons, where some of the dust storms can actually be global. The dust storm of Mars can be absolutely enormous. They can be 20 to 30 kilometers high. In fact, the dust can get charged sometimes and strike like a thunder.
Based on a report by Mail Online, This kind of storm is called texture dust storm. These dust storm can lift the dust into the Martian atmosphere and give a bubble shape.
These dust storms are visible from space. The scientist said that when this dust storm occurred, Mars turns into a hazy red ball. They can’t see the surface of Mars anymore with their satellites. This dust is not like a sand, it’s like talcum powder. It is a very small microscopic nasty dust particles.
As per Harvard team, these mega dust storms have been monitored for more than a century but still remains a mystery. There are lots of question still on queue, like how textured storms are distributed over the surface of the planet, when their frequency peaks, or how much dust is actually swept up.
In 1991, Mars Global Survey(MSG) has provided about four Mars years of global data. This data is really helpful for studying various aspects of yellow clouds and dust storm. There were 3955 textured storms occurred in between May 1999 and October 2016, including a global dust storm in June 2001 as reported by Phys.org.
Now the scientist manually marks all images of MSG and categorize its texture. They developed three new categories. Firstly, pebbled textures which are characterized by a granular or crinkled appearance suggestive of strong turbulence.
Secondly, puffy textures with a bubbling appearance and cotton-like structures analogous to cumulus clouds are indicative of vertical motions. Lastly, plume-like textures composed of multiple parallel elongated features suggestive of dust storm being uplifted and carried downstream by strong winds.
NASA experts find that these three texture types have preferred seasons and distinct location. For an example like, the Puffy dust storm which is appeared on the low latitude and Pebbled dust storm occurred more frequently in the southern mid-latitudes. This new result suggests a link between storm texture type and meteorologic condition. It can lead to improving for better understanding the Martian Climate.
