March 17, 1998
Billions of years of cosmic evolution — the birth and death of stars, the slow coalescence of planets, the patient unfolding of life — all...
Clouds Over Tharsis on Mars
Birthday · March 17, 1998
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APOD published March 17, 1998. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
When and where do clouds form on Mars? The Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft currently orbiting Mars is finding out. Photographs released last week showed clouds forming above Tharsis, a huge bulge on Mars about 4000 kilometers across and 7 kilometers high containing several large volcanoes. These clouds temporarily disappeared as a large dust storm emerged from the South, the first developing dust storm to be tracked by an orbiting spacecraft. Mars Global Surveyor continues to aerobrake during on its ongoing mission to survey the planet Mars.