Mars vanishes beneath the dust blanket! This animation created from my June 28th image and reference MGS map of the exact same longitude really shows what has happened on Mars in recent weeks! Thanks to @Tom_Ruen for the map link. pic.twitter.com/ETVIhjYcB5
— Damian Peach (@peachastro) July 2, 2018
A new animation helps us visualize just how massive the Mars dust storm is. This storm, which obscured the Sun and resulted in NASA’s Opportunity rover going into a deep sleep, at one point was “only” as big as North America. In the weeks following that detail, NASA continued to update the public on this storm’s size, using countries as a reference. A new image, though, shows us exactly how much of the Red Planet is covered by this storm.