Mars engulfed in dust storm

Image is from Space.com


A planet-wide dust storm.

That's a concept difficult to get your head around, but it's exactly what's happening right now on Mars.  For those of us with an interest in space science, it's quite a sight...so you can imagine what people who do it for a living are thinking.You can see an animation of the storm at the previous link. The picture above is a still from it, showing the otherwise clear, red features of Mars muted by a cloud of dust.

The storm began as a localized disturbance in May and gradually grew to engulf the entire planet. To render an idea of scale, Earth is slightly larger than Mars. Such a storm here would encapsulate most of the world. And yet it's not an unheard of occurrence on Mars. In fact it happens every few years, albeit this one seems set to be a record-breaker.

While it's not fully understood what causes the storms to grow to planet-size, it's thought that the smaller ones...even though they're still continent-sized at times...begin when sunlight warms the surface of Mars. This causes the heated air to rise into the thin atmosphere where the air is cooler. This creates an updraft which draws the fine Martian soil upward. The wider the temperature variations, the more dust in the air. Sometimes multiple storms can arise and in time, merge into larger ones.

That actually reminds me a little of my "merged hurricane," "sentient superstorm" story idea that I assure you will one day find its way into print.

Just as storms have a habit of doing here on Earth, this one is messing up a lot of people's plans. Mars is about to make its closest approach to Earth in 16 years. Unfortunately, astronomers both amateur and professional may not get a full view of the planet's features through their telescopes due to the heavily clouded atmosphere. Officials at NASA are also concerned for the Opportunity rover. As it is solar-powered, there has been no contact with the rover in weeks. Its solar panels are likely covered in a layer of dust but even if they weren't, the dust cloud blotting out the sunlight would be more than problematic. It is hoped that Opportunity has simply gone into hibernation mode and will re-establish contact once the dust storm subsides.

What does this Martian occurrence mean to writers? Well, I don't recall super dust storms making their way into the John Carter books of Edgar Rice Burroughs (I could be wrong as I haven't read all of them.) This may be due to the fact that telescope technology of the 19th century might have had difficulty observing such storms in detail. The storms are, however, integral to The Martian. I have yet to either read the book or see the film, but I am told a dust storm is what maroons the titular astronaut on Mars. I will say that including these storms in fiction about the Red Planet sounds necessary in order to lend any tale of colonization or extra-planetary campcraft authenticity.

Maybe colonizing Mars wouldn't be as much fun as I'd originally thought.

Oh who am I kidding? I'd still go. A planet-wide dust storm still beats perpetual political conflict.

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