Over the past few months there has been a storm brewing on Mars. What started as an innocent looking dust storm in June, it has spawned several other storms across the Martian equator. The dust from these storms eventually kicked up enough dust to enshroud the entire planet.
"What we have learned is that this is not a single, continuing storm, but rather a planet-wide series of events that were triggered in and around the Hellas basin," said Dr. Mike Malin of Malin Space Science Systems, Inc., San Diego, lead investigator on the camera. "What began as a local event stimulated separate storms many thousands of kilometers away."
Dust in the atmosphere has caused the planet's surface temperature to dip at least 10 degrees Fahrenheit, while the upper atmosphere temperature has risen about 80 degrees. With the falling surface temperatures, the storms has started to fade and decreasing surface winds has allowed dust particles to settle back to the surface. As the storms subside Mars is about to pass the closest point in orbit to the Sun, this may lead to further storms cycles in the near future.
While constant observations from the Mars Global Surveyor and Hubble Space Telescope has given researchers the ability to study the storms in great detail, the atmospheric changes has caused concern for the Mars Odyssey probe which is due to arrive soon. The Odyssey craft is scheduled to enter Mars orbit October 23 and over the next several months it will use the Martian atmosphere to aerobrake and slow the craft into a lower final orbit. With higher temperatures in the upper atmosphere, the Odyssey team will have to feel its way into final orbit since the atmospheric dynamics will be different than originally expected. Check out the press release for more info. Make sure you don't miss the incredible high resolution images of Mars taken by both the Global Surveyor and Hubble Telescope.