A powerful dust storm has begun on Mars, amateur astronomers write on social networks. The weather on the Red Planet is so bad that the curtain of dust is easily visible even through amateur telescopes. Are climate cataclysms really spreading beyond Earth?

CLYDE’S KEEPING EYES.

Amateur astronomer Clyde Foster from South Africa reported on social media that a powerful dust storm has begun on Mars. He observed the storm through his own telescope. Dense and bright clouds of sand have already covered the Chryse Planitia on the Red Planet.

Foster is a well-known figure in the world of amateur astronomy. In 2020, he noticed a new vortex on Jupiter from his home observatory. Clyde reported it on social media, and the noise was so loud that NASA ordered the Juno spacecraft to look at the region. Indeed, there was an unusual spot, a tornado, almost 5 thousand kilometers in size, and this object is now officially called “Clyde’s Spot.”

Foster’s telescope is large, but not prohibitively large. Many advanced amateurs have the same or better ones. Foster has tenacity, experience, and attentiveness on his side. And also an excellent knowledge of the objects he is monitoring. If something new catches his eye right away.

Amateurs are the only ones who constantly observe the surfaces of planets. For large telescopes, including space telescopes, planets are not a priority target. Each professional telescope has a Time Commission that distributes observation time on the device. Time is expensive. The cost of a telescope can be divided by the time it will be working, and this is the price of an observation minute. Therefore, only authoritative teams can break through to the device, and even then not for long. There is no one to constantly monitor Mars or Jupiter. Amateurs are helping out for now.

ARE MARTIAN STORMS SCARY?

Mars is a planet of hurricanes. Every year, several local storms occur on the Red Planet, and about once every five years, a planetary storm that covers the whole of Mars. On Earth, there are deserts, and there are also forests and fields, and a dust storm is unlikely to originate in the taiga (nevertheless, at any random moment, about 40 million tons of dust fly in the atmosphere of our entire planet). And it is unlikely that a tornado from the Sahara will cover the whole Earth; sooner or later it will fizzle out. Mars is deserted everywhere, and dust storms occur there everywhere.

As on Earth, the reason is uneven heating. Warm during the day, cold at night, winter in one hemisphere, summer in the other. And, as on Earth, although everything is clear in general, nothing is clear in detail. Why here. Why today.

In general, storms on Mars are more protracted than on Earth. In weak gravity, dust rises high into the atmosphere and is slow to settle. Sunlight is better absorbed by dust, and it becomes warmer. The temperature contrast increases, the wind gets stronger. The storm feeds on itself.

What does a Martian dust storm look like? Very dark. There is a concept called the aerosol optical density of the atmosphere. When this parameter is equal to 1, the Sun is hidden in a dense haze and shines dimly as a clearly defined disk. In the most terrible storms on Earth (“the day was like night”) the indicator did not exceed 7.0. On Mars, it is often 11. We cannot even imagine such darkness.

The wind is fast, although it can be faster on Earth. The fastest wind we’ve seen on Mars reached 100 kilometers per hour. But this wind doesn’t hit you in the face, doesn’t hinder your walking, doesn’t tip over rovers. After all, the atmosphere is only 1% of Earth’s.

Instead, you’re hit in the face with dust. It’s like being sandblasted. Darkness, the air turning to sandpaper – it’s hell.

THE FIRST VICTIMS.

Will the astronauts suffer? Of course. The movie “The Martian” shows all the horror, although with inaccuracies: as we have already said, the Martian wind will not blow off the roof or knock you off your feet. Otherwise, everything is true.

In January 2022, the first non-flying weather condition was declared outside Earth: the Ingenuity helicopter was preparing to launch, but the takeoff was canceled due to a storm. In 2018, a storm put an end to the Opportunity rover: dust so eroded the solar panels that they stopped generating electricity. Another peculiarity of Martian dust is that it is very sticky due to electrostatics. If it clogs the camera or panels, and you don’t have windshield wipers, you can’t do anything.

The current storm does not pose a threat to the rovers yet, but no one knows what will happen next.

DO WE HAVE THE SAME WEATHER WITH MARS?

And the weather on Earth is foolish, and the extreme solar activity is most likely to blame. Is it possible that the weather on Mars has deteriorated along with the Earth’s, for the same reason?

Although Mars is farther from the Sun than Earth, the radiation that the day star emits does not go away and reaches the Red Planet. So, in May, when we on Earth saw the polar lights even through the clouds – after a powerful solar flare – the lights sparkled on Mars too. We are protected from radiation by the magnetosphere, on Mars all this radioactive stuff just falls on the surface, so it shines not only in the north, but everywhere.

In those days, if there were astronauts on Mars, they would have received a dose equivalent to 30 chest X-rays. Not critical, but unpleasant. And it happens every day when a magnetic storm is announced. The astronauts will have to be hidden somehow.

And on the cameras of the rovers that are filming the surroundings, something like “snow” appeared. These are radiation particles hitting the camera matrix.

Of course, all this provokes weather changes. Both here and there. How exactly – is poorly studied. Meteorology operates with temperature and pressure. In general, we will experience weather anomalies together with Mars. Together it is more fun.