A strange cloud is formed on Mars every year and now we know why

A thin cloud that appears on Mars every year has confused astronomes since it was first spotted, but that is a result a atmosphere rich in moisture This was considered impossible.

Each winter, an cloud of 1800 kilometers long forms near Mars Arsia Mons in the south of the planet, appearing and disappearing for almost three months every day. Conditions in Mars atmosphere are extremely different from the ground, such as containing many more small dust particles that can trigger a water vapor in the air to condenses into cloud particles. This produces this Many cloud patterns We do not see this on Earth, but simulations that include these high levels of dust in the Mars atmosphere still cannot form characteristic features of Arsia Mons Cloud.

Now, Jorge Hernández-Bernal At the University of Sorbonne in France and his colleagues, they say that they can reproduce cloud features if there is an extremely large amount of water vapor in the air, which was previously considered impossible in Mars’ atmosphere due to the high level of dust. These high levels of water vapor help in shaping cloud particles with an alternative route without dust called homogeneous nucleation.

When researchers started the simulation of the atmosphere around Arsia Mons with a much higher level of water in the air, the resulting cloud looked incredibly similar to a real cloud, with a long tail that stretched from a volcano that spreads and formed what was known as an outburst.

“Homogeneous nucleation requires, in the case of Mars, a much higher level [water] saturation. Therefore, in principle, we thought it was not possible on Mars or very unlikely, “Henández-Bernal said Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) In Helsinki in Finland on September 10th. “But in the last decade, we learned that there was actually overblown on Mars.”