A Long Cloud on Mars and a Typhoon on Earth

NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day features an unusually elongated cloud on Mars, known as AMEC, which forms near the volcano Arsia Mons. According to NASA, the cloud is composed of water-ice and appears strictly during morning hours in spring and summer. Local winds carry the formation downstream, creating a tail stretching over 1,500 kilometers.

According to NASA, the phenomenon was first recorded in 1977 by NASA’s Viking Orbiter 2 and imaged in detail in 2018 by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft. Due to the thin upper atmosphere, leading speculation suggests dust is not involved in its formation, and ongoing research could aid the understanding of cloud dynamics on Earth.

On Earth, NASA’s Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker (EONET), utilizing data from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC), continues to monitor Super Typhoon In-fa. Satellite observations recorded on November 2, 2026, tracked the storm with maximum sustained winds of 70 knots.