'Cloud' over Mars leaves scientists baffled

[Dr. Strangelove]

Mars with the plume at limb identified within the yellow circle, and at right, augmented views of the changing plume morphology in images taken by W. Jaeschke and D. Parker on March 21, 2012. On the background an area on Terra Cimmeria on …more
Plumes seen reaching high above the surface of Mars are causing a stir among scientists studying the atmosphere on the Red Planet.


On two separate occasions in March and April 2012, amateur astronomers reported definite plume-like features developing on the planet.

The plumes were seen rising to altitudes of over 250 km above the same region of Mars on both occasions. By comparison, similar features seen in the past have not exceeded 100 km.

"At about 250 km, the division between the atmosphere and outer space is very thin, so the reported plumes are extremely unexpected," says Agustin Sanchez-Lavega of the Universidad del País Vasco in Spain, lead author of the paper reporting the results in the journal Nature.

The features developed in less than 10 hours, covering an area of up to 1000 x 500 km, and remained visible for around 10 days, changing their structure from day to day.

None of the spacecraft orbiting Mars saw the features because of their viewing geometries and illumination conditions at the time.

However, checking archived Hubble Space Telescope images taken between 1995 and 1999 and of databases of amateur images spanning 2001 to 2014 revealed occasional clouds at the limb of Mars, albeit usually only up to 100 km in altitude.

But one set of Hubble images from 17 May 1997 revealed an abnormally high plume, similar to that spotted by the amateur astronomers in 2012.

Observations of a mysterious plume-like feature (marked with yellow arrow) at the limb of the Red Planet on 20 March 2012. The observation was made by astronomer W. Jaeschke. The image is shown with the north pole towards the bottom and the …more
Scientists are now working on determining the nature and cause of the plumes by using the Hubble data in combination with the images taken by amateurs.

"One idea we've discussed is that the features are caused by a reflective cloud of water-ice, carbon dioxide-ice or dust particles, but this would require exceptional deviations from standard atmospheric circulation models to explain cloud formations at such high altitudes," says Agustin.

A curious plume-like feature was observed on Mars on 17 May 1997 by the Hubble Space Telescope. It is similar to the features detected by amateur astronomers in 2012, although appeared in a different location. Credit: JPL/NASA/STScI
"Another idea is that they are related to an auroral emission, and indeed auroras have been previously observed at these locations, linked to a known region on the surface where there is a large anomaly in the crustal magnetic field," adds Antonio Garcia Munoz, a research fellow at ESA's ESTEC and co-author of the study.

The jury is still out on the nature and genesis of these curious high-altitude martian plumes. Further insights should be possible following the arrival of ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter at the Red Planet, scheduled for launch in 2016.
'Cloud' over Mars leaves scientists baffled

 

[The Huskar]

Maybe some type of Geo thermal pressure release,who knows.Will be interesting if it is methane,that"s the first step towards terraforming.

 

[The enlightened]

Maybe some type of Geo thermal pressure release,who knows.Will be interesting if it is methane,that"s the first step towards terraforming.

Next step is using rocket boosters to put it in Earth Orbit. Next step is 'borrowing' some mineral reserves from the thoroughly useless Ganymede and Callisto and putting it on MARs to bring its mass to 1 Earth. Next step being 'borrowing' some of Venus's atmosphere and using the same rocket boosters to transplant it in Martian atmosphere. Next step would be taking another thoroughly useless moon - Europa and putting it Lunar orbit around so that all that gas doesn't blow away. Now wait for 1000 years. Voila! Earth 2 Revenge of the Nerds created.

 

[Levina]

MAVEN might be able to solve this mystery, for it is the first spacecraft to thoroughly sample the red planet's outer atmosphere. So soon we might have an answer to this.

 

[Skull and Bones]

Maybe some type of Geo thermal pressure release,who knows.Will be interesting if it is methane,that"s the first step towards terraforming.

First step forward terraforming is to create an artificial magnetic field around Mars to prevent ionizing of atmosphere my the harmful solar radiation.

 

[Jaanbaz]

Is there any planet with ridiculously large amount of oil? It would help the human civilisation a lot such as reduction in oil prices and less terrorism being exported from Middle East.

 

[Echo_419]

First step forward terraforming is to create an artificial magnetic field around Mars to prevent ionizing of atmosphere by the harmful solar radiation.

 

[The Huskar]

First step forward terraforming is to create an artificial magnetic field around Mars to prevent ionizing of atmosphere my the harmful solar radiation.

Methane formation is usually taken as a sign that the planet can someday support life.Mars core can theoretically be restarted but restarting a planet's core without causing super volcanoes is almost impossible.

 

[Skull and Bones]

Methane formation is usually taken as a sign that the planet can someday support life.Mars core can theoretically be restarted but restarting a planet's core without causing super volcanoes is almost impossible.

That is called runaway greenhouse effect.

 

[scholseys]

Is there any planet with ridiculously large amount of oil? It would help the human civilisation a lot such as reduction in oil prices and less terrorism being exported from Middle East.

Titan, Saturn's moon is full of it. The seas, oceans and the rivers are oil and the land is frozen water, in fact it rains hydrocarbon there.

 

[jamahir]

"Another idea is that they are related to an auroral emission, and indeed auroras have been previously observed at these locations, linked to a known region on the surface where there is a large anomaly in the crustal magnetic field," adds Antonio Garcia Munoz, a research fellow at ESA's ESTEC and co-author of the study.

that is what i too was thinking of.

Is there any planet with ridiculously large amount of oil? It would help the human civilisation a lot such as reduction in oil prices and less terrorism being exported from Middle East.

the saturn moon, titan...

Saturn's smoggy moon Titan has hundreds of times more natural gas and other liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, scientists said today.

source - Titan Has More Oil Than Earth

 

[DotHeadHunter]

May be Indian astronaut's farted there after eating lot of curry

 

[Dr. Strangelove]

Is there any planet with ridiculously large amount of oil? It would help the human civilisation a lot such as reduction in oil prices and less terrorism being exported from Middle East.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(moon)
it has entire seas of liquified natural gas

 

[XenoEnsi-14]

Is there any planet with ridiculously large amount of oil? It would help the human civilisation a lot such as reduction in oil prices and less terrorism being exported from Middle East.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(moon)
it has entire seas of natural gas

Great, now we will be exporting Titan terrorists in the future as if human terrorists aren't bad enough... I would rather have Fusion Power and no terrorists.

 

[unbiasedopinion]

Maybe some type of Geo thermal pressure release,who knows.Will be interesting if it is methane,that"s the first step towards terraforming.

In Human Anatomy we call it constipation ....or Gas ho jana ..