I thought mars had no atmosphere!?!

This is a link from the bbc website saying about "movies" caught by nasa engineers of dustdevils.

news.bbc.co.uk...

I'm no meteoroligist(SP?) but I know that weather systems this advanced need an atmosphere pretty dense. The temperature range on this part of mars could be explained by near earth atmosphere gases and presures. This more evidence for life?

Can anyone enlighten me on this one?

Lots of information out there my friend! As space science develops, and instruments improve, we can expect more discoveries I suppose?

Here's one link dated 1st March 2004:

"Astronomers have detected hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) in the atmosphere of Mars for the first time. This is the first time that a chemical catalyst of this sort has been found in a planetary atmosphere other than the Earth's. Catalysts control the reactions of the most important chemical cycles in the Earth's atmosphere. The result shows that scientists' knowledge of the Earth's atmosphere can be used to explain the chemistry of atmospheres on other planets, and vice versa.

The work is announced in the March issue of the journal "Icarus". The observations were made at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT), situated near the 14,000-ft summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii....."

I hope that helps?

Mars has an atmosphere, but one much thinner than Earth's. The dust devils are also much weaker than the sort of things we get - you could walk through a Martian tornado and just get your hair ruffled!

Some FAQs about Mars' climate and weather

(Edit to correct url)

[edit on 27-4-2005 by Essan]

This is not a new thing you know... I have this book dated 1985 which states that Mars' atmosphere is 95% CO2... Right or wrong, closely or not, that's 20 years ago...

i thought the mass of mass caused it to be unable to have an atmosphere.
at least one that could support us for example am i right or wrong.

Well the Martian atmosphere cannot support beings like us do to the amounts of Carbon Dioxide.

Yes, Mars has an atmosphere ... but not much of one. The air pressure on Mars is less than 1% of the air pressure on Earth at sea level. It is composed mainly of Carbon Dioxide (95.3%) plus nitrogen (2.7%), argon (1.6%) and traces of oxygen (0.15%) While very thin, the atmosphere is thick enough to support very strong winds due to temperature changes and does indeed create Dust Devils quite frequently. Photos taken from the orbiting satellite show tracks in the soil from numerous Dust Devils and they have also been photographed from the Rovers on Mars.

Simply having an atmosphere is not in and of itself a positive sign of life. Recent readings of the Methane content in the Martian atmosphere, that is localized in certain regions, give rise to the theory that it is being produced by bacteria in the Martian Soil. On Earth Methane is commonly produced this way and there is little evidence that the Methane on Mars is coming from Volcanic or geological sources. Further study is being done to better understand the Methane generation on Mars.