The Massive Mars Dust Storm Is beginning to Die Down

This frame from an animation created by astrophotographer Damian Peach shows how a global dust storm has overtaken Mars in the summer of 2018. Credit: Damian Peach

It appears that the dust in Mars is finally starting the clear on the red planet, although it might be a while still for NASA's Opportunity rover to phone home.

This global dust storm of Mars has affected the planet now for over month, making the surface of the planet to be in a perpetual darkness. Something which complicated life significantly for the solar-powered Opportunity. The rover has put itself into a sort of hibernation and hasn't contacted its controllers since June 10. 

Storm Estimated as of June 10, 2018. Credit: NASA 

The Opportunity rover. Credit: NASA

However, it appears that a long-awaited dawn seems to be on the horizon, NASA officials said before that they were sure to be capable of ride out this storm, and recently they had wrote in an Opportunity mission update where they think that "it's the beginning of the end for the planet-encircling dust storm on Mars." 

Scientists studying the storm say that, “as of Monday, July 23, more dust is falling out than is being raised into the planet's thin air," agency officials added. "That means the event has reached its decay phase, when dust-raising occurs in ever smaller areas, while others stop raising dust altogether."

Side-by-side movies shows how dust has enveloped the Red Planet, courtesy of the Mars Color Imager (MARCI) camera onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The view from May shows Valles Marineris chasms (left), Meridiani center, an autumn dust storm in Acidalia (top) and the early spring south polar cap (bottom). The view from July shows the same regions, but most of the surface was obscured by the planet-encircling dust cloud and haze. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Also, in other information as in with the measurements by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show that temperatures in the middle atmosphere have stopped rising, indicating less absorption of solar heat by dust particles, makes NASA scientist’s conclusion to be right. 

Another evidence for that are the observations carried out by NASA's Curiosity rover, which fortunately can operate in Mars within the storm due to its nuclear-powered capacity, and which was able to see a decline in overhead dust at its location, the 154 kilometres Gale Crater, agency officials said. Now some of the Martian landforms previously hidden beneath the dust can be spotted from orbit again, and may even be visible using Earth-based telescopes.

This series of images shows simulated views of a darkening Martian sky blotting out the Sun from NASA’s Opportunity rover’s point of view, with the right side simulating Opportunity’s view in the global dust storm of June 2018. Credit: NASA

Sources: space.com, NASA, Wikipedia