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Mars's Twilight Cloud Band: A New Cloud Feature Seen During the Mars Year 34 Global Dust Storm
Author(s) -
Connour Kyle,
Schneider Nicholas M.,
Milby Zachariah,
Forget François,
Alhosani Mohamed,
Spiga Aymeric,
Millour Ehouarn,
Lefèvre Franck,
Deighan Justin,
Jain Sonal K.,
Wolff Michael J.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2019gl084997
Subject(s) - dust storm , mars exploration program , storm , twilight , atmospheric sciences , geology , terminator (solar) , environmental science , meteorology , climatology , astrobiology , geophysics , ionosphere , astronomy , physics , oceanography
We report a new water‐ice cloud feature observed during the Mars year 34 global dust storm: twilight cloud bands that routinely formed just past the evening terminator. We use images taken by the MAVEN/IUVS instrument. These bands were often latitudinally continuous, spanning over 6,000 km and were present between 18:00 and 19:00 local time. They were present for nearly the entire time IUVS imaged the evening terminator and often reached altitudes of at least 40 to 50 km during the mature phase of the storm. We compare these observations to LMD global climate model simulations. The simulations generally contain the temporal and spatial extents of the bands seen in IUVS data throughout the storm, but there are some discrepancies. We infer that these clouds formed as a result of semidiurnal thermal tides.