NASA Reveals Mars Has Massive Seasonal Dust Storms

NASA recently revealed an incredible image of dust storm patterns on Mars while analyzing its seasonal patterns. Scientists from the American space agency reportedly discovered that the red planet has three different regional storms that occur consecutively at the same points in a year, during spring and summer in the southern hemisphere.

Could dust storms on the Red Planet have seasonal patterns? Mars orbiters help us find out: https://t.co/Jx1JJX4YBd pic.twitter.com/qEqdgdrTfq

— NASA (@NASA) June 10, 2016

The image was based on the temperature records taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) over the past six Martian years, as per a report by NASA. One year on the red planet is equal to two Earth years.

Dust particles on Mars absorb sunlight, and the variation in temperature that it can absorb goes up by 35 Celsius degrees. The heated dust particles affect the wind distribution of the planet, which causes the heat to move downward outside the dusty regions and subsequently warm even the areas with clean non heated dust. The temperature recordings imply both direct and indirect impacts of dust storms in the atmosphere of Mars. NASA has categorized the large storms as A, B and C.

"When we look at the temperature structure instead of the visible dust, we finally see some regularity in the large dust storms," NASA's David Kass said. "Recognizing a pattern in the occurrence of regional dust storms is a step toward understanding the fundamental atmospheric properties controlling them," he said. "We still have much to learn, but this gives us a valuable opening."

The improved ability for the prediction of potentially hazardous, large scale storms would be crucial for the safety of future robotic and human missions on the Martian surface. Scientists can also gain more insight into how seasonal local events impact the annual global weather in Mars by understanding the categories and patterns of dust storms. Incidentally, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been operated continuously by the American space agency since 1997.