Earth-like clouds on Mars reveal a striking similarity between the planets

Earth and Mars are drastically different worlds.

But some features on the Red Planet look a lot like the ones we’re familiar with at home.

But with the Martian atmosphere being so much colder and drier than Earth’s, scientists weren’t sure how the dust clouds were able to form similar shapes.

Writing this week in the journal Icarus, scientists detail an explanation nearly identical to how Earth’s clouds form — just with a dustier outcome.

On Earth, rising hot air carries water molecules that form the actual cloud material we can see.

But on Mars, it’s so dry that hot dust molecules are carried into the atmosphere instead of water.

“When thinking of a Mars-like atmosphere on Earth, one might easily think of a dry desert or polar region.

It is quite unexpected then, that through tracking the chaotic movement of dust storms, that parallels can be drawn with the processes that occur in Earth’s moist, hot, and decidedly very un-Mars-like tropical regions.”