esahubble_opo0131c October 11th, 2001
Credit: NASA/ESA, James Bell (Cornell Univ.), Michael Wolff (Space Science Inst.), and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
When Hubble photographed Mars in early September, the storm had already been raging across the planet for nearly two months obscuring all surface features. The fine airborne dust blocks a significant amount of sunlight from reaching the Martian surface. Because the airborne dust is absorbing this sunlight, it heats the upper atmosphere. Seasonal global Mars dust storms have been observed from telescopes for over a century, but this is the biggest storm ever seen in the past several decades.
Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA
Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo0131c/
Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany
Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Detailed color mapping information coming soon...
Providers | Sign In