For the first time, astronomers have observed a storm of shooting stars in the Martian atmosphere. The data was taken from the Mars Global Surveyor satellite. The satellite has been orbiting Mars since 1997. The team developed a model to predict meteor showers caused by the intersection of Mars with dust trails from comet 79P/du Toit-Hartley. Using the model, they identified six showers. More data is required to understand exactly how the ionosphere reacts to meteor influx. The comet 79P intersects with Mars' orbit again in 2010, 2014, 2016, and 2024, and the team hopes to gather this data then.
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