When Earth’s atmosphere looks like Mars’

Although at first the landscape shown in this photograph may seem like it is from Mars, the presence of a little vegetation will quickly show us that it is a landscape from Earth. Strangely enough, this is how Martian this place, Cabo de Gata in Almería, Andalusia, Spain, looked during the passage of a dust cloud from the Sahara Desert, on March 15, 2022. This striking event has been investigated by Sergio Rodríguez and Jessica López-Darias, both from the Institute of Natural Products and Agrobiology (IPNA), dependent on the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. The study is titled “Extreme Saharan dust events expand northward over the Atlantic and Europe, prompting record-breaking PM10 and PM2.5 episodes.” And it has been published in the academic journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. (Fountain: NCYT by Amazings)

(Photo: Eva De Mas / EEZA / CSIC. CC BY-ND)