Click here to enlarge

image credit: J. Bell (ASU), M. Wolff (Space Science Inst.), Hubble Heritage Team (STScI / AURA), NASA



what's happened to Mars ?

in 2001, Mars underwent a tremendous planet-wide dust storm -- one of the largest ever recorded from Earth

to show the extent, these two Hubble Space Telescope storm watch images from late june and early september (2001) offer dramatically contrasting views of the martian surface

at left, the onset of smaller "seed" storms can be seen near the Hellas basin (lower right edge of Mars) and the northern polar cap

a similar surface view at right, taken over two months later, shows the fully developed extent of the obscuring global storm

although this storm eventually waned, recently another new large dust storm took hold of the red planet



































in apod.nasa.gov/apod