{"id":396862,"date":"2026-04-17T10:56:33","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T10:56:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/396862\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T10:56:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T10:56:33","slug":"whats-this-strange-dark-cloud-moving-across-the-surface-of-mars-scientists-say-its-grown-over-five-decades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/396862\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s this strange, dark cloud moving across the surface of Mars? Scientists say it’s grown over five decades"},"content":{"rendered":"

Knowing how barren and apparently lifeless modern-day Mars is, you would be forgiven for thinking it quite static and unchangeable.<\/p>\n

Scientists have discovered piles of evidence that show ancient Mars was warmer and wetter, and have found signs of dried-up rivers and lakes that suggest the Red Planet was once much more like present-day Earth.<\/p>\n

But today, Mars<\/a> is a freezing, dry, arid, lifeless world. However, its surface is much more dynamic and changeable than you might think.<\/p>\n

\"IllustrationIllustration showing how Mars compares to Earth in size. Credit: Baac3nes \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

The European Space Agency’s Mars Express probe has been orbiting the planet since 2003, and has revealed many of the secrets of its atmosphere, surface and moons.<\/p>\n

These images from 2024 show a strange dark material passing over the surface of Mars, which wasn’t there when the same region was photographed by NASA’s Viking orbiters in 1976.<\/p>\n

So what’s going on?<\/p>\n

\"TwoTwo images showing how the same region of Mars has become more covered in ancient dark ash over a period of about 50 years. The left image was captured by NASA’s Viking orbiters in 1976, the right image by ESA’s Mars Express orbiter in 2024. The white box outlines a region images by the High Resolution Stereo Camera on ESA’s Mars Express mission in 2024. Credit: NASA
\nThe case of the dark cloud sweeping across Mars<\/p>\n

Much of the surface of Mars has the rusty, reddish ochre colour from which the Red Planet gets its nickname<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But in this image from\u00a0Mars Express’s High Resolution Stereo Camera, the planet\u2019s tan-coloured sands stand in stark contrast with the opposing large region of dark material.<\/p>\n

The dark portion is covered in volcanic ash.<\/p>\n

Yet when this region of Mars was seen by the Viking orbiters, the ash was less widespread than it is today.<\/p>\n

\"AClick to zoom in. A blanket of dark ash creeping across the surface of Mars in the Utopia Planitia region, as seen by the Mars Express probe. Credit: ESA\/DLR\/FU Berlin<\/p>\n

Mars has no known active volcanoes today, but it did in its past.<\/p>\n

The Red Planet has a known volcanic history, and even hosts the largest volcano in the Solar System, Olympus Mons<\/a>, which is more than double the height of Mauna Kea, the largest volcano on Earth.<\/p>\n

Planetary scientists say the dark material seen here was probably formed and distributed by volcanoes.<\/p>\n

They say the volcanic material is rich in \u2018mafic\u2019 minerals, which form at high temperatures and give the layer of ash its dark colour.<\/p>\n

\"ImageImage of Olympus Mons, the tallest and largest volcano in the Solar System, captured by ESA’s Mars Express and processed by Andrea Luck. Credit: Credit: ESA\/DLR\/FUBerlin\/AndreaLuck<\/p>\n

But what has caused the spread of darkness across the Red Planet since 1976? <\/p>\n

Scientists say there are two possible explanations: either it has been whisked around by powerful Martian winds, or the ochre dust that once covered the ancient dark ash has been blown away over time.<\/p>\n

Either way, it shows how ever-changing the surface of even an apparently lifeless planet like Mars really is, and how planetary probes are constantly revealing the secrets of the Solar System worlds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Knowing how barren and apparently lifeless modern-day Mars is, you would be forgiven for thinking it quite static…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,141,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-396862","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}