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155km Martian Plume

Dryson

Dryson

Commodore
Commodore
http://www.space.com/28573-mystery-plumes-on-mars.html

A mystery is brewing on Mars: Amateur astronomers spotted enormous plumes erupting off the Red Planet's surface, leaving scientists puzzled.
More than 155 miles (250 kilometers) high and hundreds of miles across, the baffling plumes were spotted by amateur astronomers in the spring of 2012.

If Mars doesn't have a very active core, how is this possible?
 
There are dozens of possibilities. it could be from comet explosions in the upper atmosphere. It could be sublimation of large volumes of sub-surface ice. It could be auroras from charged particles hitting regions of Mars' patchy/inconsistent magnetic field. It could be high-altitude dust storms. It could be Klingons.

Research is only just beginning.
 
The phenomenon has been observed before in the same region. The 2012 plumes in March and April were similar scale to one another as was one in 1997 so I would expect it to be a planetary phenomenon rather than a comet or such. Dryson seems to be guessing at some kind of volcanic or geyser phenomenon but that would leave visible surface disturbance that would have been observed by now. Worth checking, but unlikely. Assuming all these plumes are the result of the same causes, the search should be fascinating. Clouds of water or carbon dioxide jettisoned to high altitude from rare extreme weather or an auroral formation unique to the area are mentioned as strong possibilities. Could those two be a combined cause? Aurora activity lighting storm activity in the region?

Have any strange cylinders landed anywhere recently?
 
Gov Kodos said:
Aurora activity lighting storm activity in the region?
Click to expand...
That would be my guess. The Mars Global Surveyor data suggests that the planet's magnetic field is asymmetrical and almost as bottom-heavy as the planet itself; it's very weak and inconsistent, with lines of force twisting and curling in a dozen directions, and yet it's concentrated almost entirely in the Southern Hemisphere. I'm thinking that this particular region is probably a convergence point between several lines of magnetic force, like the planetary version of a sunspot. You wouldn't need a lot of solar activity to trigger an aurora, because any charged particles that get caught up in the planet's entire magnetosphere would be directed there and flare into an aurora where/when the lines converge.

Have any strange cylinders landed anywhere recently?
Click to expand...
tuc0167.jpg


Only in the sides of my head
 
Crazy Eddie said:
There It could be auroras from charged particles hitting regions of Mars' patchy/inconsistent magnetic field.
Click to expand...

I don't think it is an aurora--but it may very well have something to do with magnetic fields.

Our planet has one good strength field, so there is no inside or outside for atmosphere to be trapped in between down here--our air is all inside.
On Mars, you might have something like MHD movement of gases, with field lines leading to fountaining perhaps.

On Mars, you may have an atmospheric version of the suns' Flares, CMEs. When the sun goes through a flip, you get confused areas and some eruptions.

It could be that Mars doesn't lose its atmosphere steadily over time--but in puffs.
 
Some kind of an explosion or outventing seems possible. There really is so much we do not know. I thought the notion of Mars losing its atmosphere in "puffs" intriguing. I had never heard that hypothesis before.

or, "Martian New Year" celebration fireworks?
 
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