Dust storm on Mars has reached a planetary scale, even Curiosity is affected

Winter A dust storm has risen close to Curiosity, closer than ever

A few days ago, information was published on Habré that the Opportunity rover, which has been working on the Red Planet for more than 15 years, entered hibernation mode. In this mode, it has only a few basic functions. From time to time, the rover wakes up, checks its own state and the amount of generated energy, finds all this unsatisfactory and goes back to sleep.

The problem is not caused by software or rover hardware. The fact is that Opportunity does not receive enough energy for normal operation. The reason for this is a powerful dust storm on Mars that has contaminated the device’s solar panels so much that they generate almost nothing. Well, now this storm has reached a planetary scale .

Currently, the atmosphere of the planet is polluted by the smallest suspension of particles in a vast territory. Dust overtook even Curiosity, which is far enough away from Opportunity, in fact, in another hemisphere. Unfortunately, how the situation will develop with Opportunity, it is not yet clear - scientists simply do not know whether the device will come out of hibernation.

As for Curiosity, scientists believe that the danger that a dust storm can be to this rover is minimal. If he had photocells, then he, like Opportunity, would no longer work. Fortunately, the rover is driven not by the energy that is generated by the solar panels, but by the electricity that the RTG produces. This is a radioisotope source of electricity that uses thermal energy released during the natural decay of radioactive isotopes and converts it into electricity using a thermoelectric generator.

It is worth noting that the last time Mars covered the planetary storm in 2007, and at that time it was not as strong as it is now. Scientists estimate the power of the “dust storm” in this region at 8 tau. Opportunity is even worse - there the storm has gained strength in 11 tau. Of course, all this has nothing to do with the storm shown in the film “The Martian”, where the winds were able to carry loads of tens of kilograms, but it is even more interesting to study the real situation with disturbances in the atmosphere of Mars.

Astronomers are closely following the development of the storm with the Mars Color Imager camera (MARCI), one of the functional elements of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter . In addition, it helps to study the situation and a tool such as the Mast Camera or Mastcam installed on the rover. Thanks to them, scientists see that the atmosphere of Mars is becoming less and less transparent due to the huge amount of dust in the atmosphere. Experts say that the storm covered an area exceeding the aggregate size of all of North America and Russia.

Planetologists and climatologists are studying the mechanisms of the occurrence of a planetary dust storm, trying to figure out why it appears and is able to cover the entire planet. In the future, this will help to predict the appearance of such phenomena - at least in order to prepare the technique for such situations. In the meantime, scientists from NASA continue to monitor the situation, giving the most uncomplicated answer to the most questions: “We do not yet have anything to say about this.”

Storms on Mars are commonplace. But these ordinary storms are very small in volume and attenuate within a few hours after their appearance. Most often, dust storms occur in spring and summer, when the atmosphere gets warmer. At this time, the frozen carbon dioxide at the poles of the planet evaporates and increases the density of the Martian atmosphere and its pressure. Accordingly, dust particles are not so difficult to stay in the air of the planet, as in cold periods. In some cases, dust travels many tens of kilometers from the place where it rose into the air.

On Earth, as you know, there are dust and sand storms. But they cannot reach the planetary scale for a number of reasons. Earth is a planet where uncontrolled expansion is simply impossible due to very different meteorological conditions in different regions. Mountains, forests, ponds - all this prevents the spread of storms or storms throughout the planet.