Predicting the next Martian global dust storm
Please consider donating to Behind the Black, by giving either a one-time contribution or a regular subscription, as outlined in the tip jar to the right. Your support will allow me to continue covering science and culture as I have for the past twenty years, independent and free from any outside influence.
Scientists think they now have a method to predict the next global-wide dust storm on Mars, and based on this theory they predict it will happen very soon.
Global dust storms on Mars could soon become more predictable — which would be a boon for future astronauts there — if the next one follows a pattern suggested by those in the past. A published prediction, based on this pattern, points to Mars experiencing a global dust storm in the next few months. “Mars will reach the midpoint of its current dust storm season on October 29th of this year. Based on the historical pattern we found, we believe it is very likely that a global dust storm will begin within a few weeks or months of this date,” James Shirley, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.
This is most interesting because my next rover update, later today or tomorrow, is going to note the increasingly dusty atmosphere in Gale Crater. It isn’t a global dust storm, but maybe it is indicative of one that is about to happen.
Please consider donating to Behind the Black, by giving either a one-time contribution or a regular subscription, as outlined in the tip jar to the right. Your support will allow me to continue covering science and culture as I have for the past twenty years, independent and free from any outside influence.
Scientists think they now have a method to predict the next global-wide dust storm on Mars, and based on this theory they predict it will happen very soon.
Global dust storms on Mars could soon become more predictable — which would be a boon for future astronauts there — if the next one follows a pattern suggested by those in the past. A published prediction, based on this pattern, points to Mars experiencing a global dust storm in the next few months. “Mars will reach the midpoint of its current dust storm season on October 29th of this year. Based on the historical pattern we found, we believe it is very likely that a global dust storm will begin within a few weeks or months of this date,” James Shirley, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.
This is most interesting because my next rover update, later today or tomorrow, is going to note the increasingly dusty atmosphere in Gale Crater. It isn’t a global dust storm, but maybe it is indicative of one that is about to happen.
Related because its about weather on this planet, but its stupid:
This how EF’n stupid stupid can get.
http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2016/10/05/what-nbcs-ron-allen-thinks-climate-deal-designed-stop-storms
Every drop of common sense is being attempted to be wrung out of the American public by our political leaders and our media.
I really do not like to use the word, there is always something redeeming to be found after a discussion, but this is like I said, stupid, stupid and more stupid!
Well, everybody does complain about the weather.
Thank goodness that Pres. Obama is finally going to do something about it! [sarc]
And too add,
Mars pretty much looks like a little featureless gibbous blob through my 10″ telescope, at the moment.
It’s too bad we’re going to miss it being a featureless little disc because of a GLOBAL dust storm!
I wonder how much solar panels lose during a dust storm?
@Cotour, Yuri Maltsev was the last defector from the Soviet Union, an economics adviser to Gorbachev (who does not accept any blame, “advising” consisted of just listening to the boss, he says) who became libertarian when he was ordered to read Ludwig von Mises in order to study the enemy. He’s got a sense of humor when he talks for the Mises Institute in the US nowadays. He said that in Soviet, the only thing people dared comment, of what they read in the lying newspaper Pravda, was the weather forecast. But now in the US, the weather has become the most politically sensitive topic of all!