Mega Dust Storms | MARS

we’ve been studying the dust storms on
Mars for quite some time and there’s a
particular season where some of the dust
storms can actually go global not just
regional but global dust storms on Mars
can be absolutely enormous it can be 20
to 40 kilometers high and in fact the
dust can get charged and in the case of
these really tall dust storms lightning
can strike these dust storms are huge
they can cover the entire planet they
can last for months they’re visible from
space Mars just kind of turns into a
hazy red ball and we can’t see surface
features anymore with our satellites the
dust it’s not like sand
it’s like talcum powder it’s very very
microscopically small nasty dust
particles and if they get into your
lungs to human safety issue so you would
want to try to keep it out as much as
possible there’s a lot of dust on Mars
you know we’ve learned from our Rovers
on Mars that they’re constantly getting
covered in dust and one of the problems
with solar panels is the dust would
cover them almost instantly or they
would simply block out the Sun so much
that they don’t work if you’ve got a
dust storm that lasted for a month on
Mars and you were relying on solar power
you’d be in big trouble
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