Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission when you make a purchase through links to our articles.
In this photo, which was taken in 2023 December 24 As recorded by the European Space Agency’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, dust avalanches line the slopes near Apollinaris Mons on Mars. Credit: ESA/IGO/CaSSIS
in 2023 On Christmas Eve, a European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft captured what appears to be a barcode etched into the rusty slopes of Mars.
Photo taken by ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbitershows dark, finger-like trails running down the sides of Apollinaris Mons, a huge extinct volcano near the Martian equator. Each strip — some just a few yards wide, others hundreds in diameter — traces the path of an avalanche of dust caused by a meteorite hitting the surface, shaking loose fine grains that fell down, the ESA said. statement.
Although these mysterious features cover less than 0.1% of Mars’ surface, they play a huge role in the planet’s dust cycle, scientists say. Together, the slope streaks transport enough dust each Martian year rivaling at least two global stormstherefore, they are important participants in the Martian climate system.
A new study led by Valentin Bickel of the University of Bern in Switzerland found that less than one in a thousand streaks form after meteoroid impacts like those near Apollinaris Mons. Instead, most of them are caused by seasonal changes in wind and dust activity, the study says.
“Meteoroid impacts and earthquakes appear to be locally distinct but globally relatively insignificant factors,” Bickel said in an ESA statement.
To reach this conclusion, the scientist analyzed more than 2 million tilt sections of 90,000 images of Mars taken between 2006 and 2024, mostly from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Based on previous work With 86,000 streaks cataloged, Bickel cross-referenced his new database with global maps of temperature, wind speed, surface hydration, landslides and dust devil activity.
Using an improved deep learning algorithm, the researcher scanned the entire archive of images captured by the MRO context camera, or CTXwhich is designed to monitor changes across the surface of Mars. This method allowed him to pinpoint when and where the streaks formed, revealing global patterns of streaking on Martian slopes, and to estimate how much dust these processes introduce into the Martian atmosphere.
The findings suggest that most of the streaks occur in conjunction with the planet’s dustiest seasons, particularly in the southern summer and fall, when winds exceed the threshold needed to move sand-sized particles.
By estimating how much the dust slope stretches in total move, and comparing that to existing data on Mars’ global dust circulation, Bickel found that these small stretches together lift about a quarter of all the dust that changes the surface and atmosphere each year, about the same amount as two planet-scale dust storms combined.
“Conditions most favorable for seasonal streak formation appear to occur at sunrise and sunset,” Bickel wrote in the new paper. Martian orbiters rarely capture images during these dimmer hours, he added, so such events have yet to be seen in real time.
The study also highlights five global slope “hotspots”—Amazonia, the Olympus Mons halo, Tharsis, Arabia, and Elysium—all major geographic features on Mars, where steep slopes, loose dust, and reasonably strong winds bind the surface.
“These observations can help us better understand what’s happening on Mars today,” Colin Wilson, project scientist for the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, said in a statement.
Findings detailed in a paper published on November 6 in the journal Nature Communications.