Cirrus Cloud - Extraterrestrial

Extraterrestrial

Cirrus clouds have been observed on several other planets. On September 18, 2008, the Martian Lander Phoenix took a time-lapse photograph of a group of cirrus clouds moving across the Martian sky using LiDAR. Near the end of its mission, the Phoenix Lander detected more thin clouds close to the north pole of Mars. Over the course of several days, they thickened, lowered, and eventually began snowing. The total precipitation was only a few thousandths of a millimeter. James Whiteway from York University concluded that "precipitation is a component of the hydrologic cycle." These clouds formed during the Martian night in two layers, one around 4,000 m (13,000 ft) above ground and the other at surface level. They lasted through early morning before being burned away by the sun. The crystals in these clouds were formed at a temperature of −65 °C (−85 °F), and they were shaped roughly like ellipsoids 0.127 millimeters long and 0.042 millimeters wide.

On Jupiter, cirrus clouds are composed of ammonia. When Jupiter's South Equatorial Belt disappeared, one hypothesis put forward by Glenn Orten was that a large quantity of ammonia cirrus clouds had formed above it, hiding it from view. NASA's Cassini probe detected these clouds on Saturn and thin water-ice cirrus on Saturn's moon Titan. Cirrus clouds composed of methane ice exist on Uranus. On Neptune, thin wispy clouds which could possibly be cirrus have been detected over the Great Dark Spot. As on Uranus, these are probably methane crystals.

Interstellar cirrus clouds are composed of tiny dust grains smaller than a micrometer and are therefore not true clouds of this genus which are composed of ice crystals or other frozen liquids. They range from a few light years to dozens of light years across. While they are not technically cirrus clouds, the dust clouds are referred to as "cirrus" because of their similarity to the clouds on Earth. They also emit infrared radiation, similar to the way cirrus clouds on Earth reflect heat being radiated out into space.