![]() “We just do not understand how dust storms form on Mars,” says planetary meteorologist Scott Guzewich of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Such storms can make the nail-biting process of landing on Mars even more dangerous and could certainly make life difficult for future human explorers.ĭespite almost 50 years of study, scientists are missing some key data that would help explain how dust gets kicked into the air to form planet-wide storms and what keeps it circulating for weeks or months at a time. ![]() Bean had joined Opportunity’s rover-driving team just before that May 2018 storm.ĭust storms like that one, which snuffed out Opportunity for good, are the most dramatic and least predictable events on the Red Planet ( SN: 3/16/19, p. ![]() “It got so bad so quickly, we didn’t even have time to react,” says Keri Bean of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Within a week, the dust storm spanned more than twice the area of the contiguous United States and eventually encircled the whole planet, allowing just 5 percent of the normal amount of light to reach Opportunity’s solar panels. ![]() Small flecks swirled like wildfire smoke through the atmosphere, turning sun-filled midday into dusk, then night. In more than 14 Earth years of exploring the Red Planet, the rover had seen plenty of this kind of weather.īut the dust grew thicker. ![]() The Opportunity rover watched with its robotic eyes as the wind blowing through Perseverance Valley kicked puffs of rusty Mars dust into the air. ![]()
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