A seasonal imbalance in the amount of solar energy absorbed and released by the planet Mars is a likely cause of the dust storms that have long intrigued observers, a team of researchers reports.
A seasonal imbalance in the amount of solar energy absorbed and released by the planet Mars is a likely cause of the dust storms that have long intrigued observers, a team of researchers reports.
Mars’ extreme imbalance in energy budget (a term referring to the measurement of solar energy a planet takes in from the sun then releases as heat) was documented by University of Houston researchers Liming Li, associate professor of physics; Xun Jiang, professor of atmospheric science; and Ellen Creecy, doctoral student and lead author of an article to be published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
“One of our most interesting findings is that the energy excess – more energy being absorbed than emitted – could be one of the generating mechanisms of Mars’ dust storms. Understanding how this works on Mars might provide clues about the roles Earth’s energy budget takes in the development of severe storms, including hurricanes, on our own planet,” Creecy said.
A thin atmosphere and very elliptical orbit make Mars especially susceptible to wide temperature differences. It absorbs extreme amounts of solar heat when it swings closest to the sun in its perihelion seasons (spring and summer for Mars’ southern hemisphere), which is the same extreme part of the orbit when its dust storms appear. As its orbit takes Mars further away from the sun, less solar energy is absorbed by the planet. This same phenomenon happens on Earth, too, but the researchers found it to be especially extreme on Mars.
Read more at University of Houston
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