A 1,000-mile cloud on Mars may reveal physics never seen in nature
A new model suggests Mars may host ice-forming physics never directly observed before.
Every morning during the Martian spring and summer, a thin and extremely long cloud emerges near the volcano Arsia Mons, stretching over 1,000 miles before disappearing again. This peculiar phenomenon, known as the Arsia Mons Elongated Cloud (AMEC), has baffled scientists since its discovery by a probe in 2018. Despite numerous attempts to explain its existence, researchers have been unable to find a plausible cause.
Recently, however, scientists have successfully modeled the AMEC's formation, revealing that it may be driven by an exotic physical process never directly observed in any planet's atmosphere. The lead author of the study, Jorge Hernández-Bernal, a planetary scientist at Paris' Sorbonne Université, explained that the team needed to incorporate some theoretical physics into their simulations for the AMEC to emerge as expected. Once this physics was included, the cloud appeared just as they anticipated.
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