Researchers model a massive recurring Martian cloud using previously unobserved atmospheric physics

Planetary scientists have successfully simulated the formation of the Arsia Mons Elongated Cloud, a mysterious 1,000-mile-long atmospheric formation on Mars. First recorded by a space probe in 2018, the wispy structure appears every morning near the Arsia Mons volcano throughout the Martian spring and summer, stretches for months across an expanse roughly equal to the distance from New York to Kansas City, and then dissipates. [1][2]

According to lead study author Jorge Hernández-Bernal of Sorbonne Université in Paris, standard atmospheric models could not explain the cloud's behavior until researchers incorporated theoretical physics never before observed in nature. While these mechanisms are documented in physics textbooks, scientists previously considered them unlikely to occur naturally, yet adding them to the simulation finally reproduced the massive cloud's recurring daily cycle. [1]