New Delhi

We know about planet Mars but perhaps many of us don't know that the red planet has an atmosphere. Not only this, storms take place on its surface fairly regularly. It's true that the Martian atmosphere is much thinner than the one we have here on Earth, it sure is novelty to many when they come to know about it for the first time.

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Now United Arab Emirates' Mars mission has found out that thinner atmosphere or not, Martian storms can cause changes on the planet's surface that are discernible even from the orbit around the planet. UAE's Hope Mission has found that storms caused changes in thickness on the Martian surface that were detected by the Hope probe in orbit around the Mars. 

A paper published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets a couple months ago described the observations made by the Hope probe before and after a Martian storm in 2022.

The infrared spectrometer of the Hope probe detected changes in surface thickness of dust cover on the Martian surface from the orbit. The probe observed changes in several regions of Mars.

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On Friday (Dec 29), the Hope Mission also posted an animation about this.

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"Although the regional dust storm was active over all the regions of interest, we found that dust may have been removed and subsequently deposited with varying levels of intensity in the regions sampled," said the researchers in their paper.

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The probe found that some regions of the Mars experienced net removal of dust as high as 340 micrometres resulting in changes in surface temperatures which could be detected from the orbit.

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The probe also found that some regions experienced net deposition of dust up to 120 micrometres.

"Visible-wavelength imagery from the Emirates Exploration Imager, which is more sensitive to changes in surface dust distribution, is incorporated in our analysis to provide additional context," said the researchers in their paper. 

They said that the estimated suggested "dust reservoirs are capable of transporting vast quantities of dust over short timescales."

(With inputs from agencies)