Scientists have successfully modeled the formation of a mysterious, mile‑long cloud that drifts across the Martian sky each spring and summer, indicating that the phenomenon may be driven by a type of physics that has never been observed in nature.
The cloud, known as the Arsia Mons Elongated Cloud (AMEC), appears each morning near the volcano Arsia Mons. It begins as a thin, wispy formation and gradually stretches to a length of more than 1,000 miles—roughly the distance from New York to Kansas City—before dissipating later in the day. The cycle repeats for several months during the planet’s warmer seasons.
First detected by a probe in 2018, the AMEC has long puzzled researchers because conventional atmospheric models could not account for its extreme elongation and daily rhythm.
“We found that we needed to include some exotic physics… physics that, while included in textbooks, is treated as theoretical and usually thought not to happen in nature. It certainly hasn’t been seen in action before,” said Jorge Hernández‑Bernal, a planetary scientist at Sorbonne Université and lead author of the new study. “Once we included this physics in our simulations, the AMEC emerged just as we hoped.”
The study’s findings suggest that a theoretical atmospheric process—previously considered unlikely to occur on any planet—may actually operate in Mars’ thin, carbon‑dioxide‑rich atmosphere, offering fresh insight into the Red Planet’s climate dynamics and expanding the range of phenomena that planetary scientists must consider when interpreting extraterrestrial weather.
<small>Source: Ars Technica — read the original story there.</small>
