Reply To: Mars dust storm alert

Forums Mars Mars dust storm alert Reply To: Mars dust storm alert

#612820

I am glad to see observers following this up. We did not have as many observations from the UK and Europe this time as I would have liked. But the western end of the storm, whose development we might have followed better, was decaying while the eastern part developed vigorously. The latter end was well observed on nearly every date from Japan, with some good observations on a few dates from Australia too. In America, observers could watch only the eastern limit of the dust as it appeared over Hellas (at the morning limb) in recent days. The storm closely followed the pattern of the large regional event of 2020 November, described in great detail in the Section blog for that year, with new cores forming in similar locations and ultimately a large dust cloud spilling over the boundaries of Hellas marking the eastern end. The pattern of fallout is however different at first glance, with the apparent boundaries of Argyre much enlarged. The small dust core imaged by John at Gallinaria Silva (just west of Solis Lacus) is the sort of phenomenon that continually renews this variable albedo feature.

Richard McKim