Getting the whirlwind recording, Wiens stated, was fortunate, though not necessarily unforeseen. In the Jezero Crater, where Perseverance landed, the group has actually observed evidence of almost 100 dust devils– small twisters of dust and grit– considering that the rovers landing.
The sound recording of the dust devil, taken together with air pressure readings and time-lapse photography, assists scientists understand the Martian environment and weather.
“The wind is quickly– about 25 miles per hour, but about what you would see in a dust devil on Earth. Its not an effective wind, however clearly adequate to loft particles of grit into the air to make a dust devil.”
The info suggests that future astronauts will not have to stress about gale-force winds blowing down antennas or environments– so future Mark Watneys wont be left– however the wind may have some advantages. The breezes blowing grit off the solar panels of other rovers– specifically Opportunity and Spirit– may be what helped them last so much longer.
” Those rover groups would see a slow decline in power over a number of days to weeks, then a jump. That was when wind cleared off the photovoltaic panels,” Wiens said.
The absence of such wind and dust devils in the Elysium Planitia where the InSIght objective landed might assist describe why that mission is unwinding.
” Just like Earth, there is different weather in various locations on Mars,” Wiens stated. “Using all of our instruments and tools, especially the microphone, helps us get a concrete sense of what it would be like to be on Mars.”
Reference: “The sound of a Martian dust devil” by N. Murdoch, A. E. Stott, M. Gillier, R. Hueso, M. Lemmon, G. Martinez, V. Apéstigue, D. Toledo, R. D. Lorenz, B. Chide, A. Munguira, A. Sánchez-Lavega, A. Vicente-Retortillo, C. E. Newman, S. Maurice, M. de la Torre Juárez, T. Bertrand, D. Banfield, S. Navarro, M. Marin, J. Torres, J. Gomez-Elvira, X. Jacob, A. Cadu, A. Sournac, J. A. Rodriguez-Manfredi, R. C. Wiens, and D. Mimoun, 13 December 2022, Nature Communications.DOI: 10.1038/ s41467-022-35100-z.
Dust devils on Mars are little whirlwinds of dust that occur when the sun heats the surface area of the world, triggering the air to increase and form a vortex. These dust devils can reach heights of up to numerous kilometers and have winds that can reach speeds of up to 60 km/h. In the Jezero Crater, where Perseverance landed, the group has observed proof of nearly 100 dust devils– small twisters of dust and grit– since the rovers landing. “The wind is quick– about 25 miles per hour, but about what you would see in a dust devil on Earth. Its not an effective wind, however clearly enough to loft particles of grit into the air to make a dust devil.”
Dust devils on Mars are little whirlwinds of dust that take place when the sun heats up the surface area of the planet, causing the air to increase and form a vortex. These dust devils can reach heights of as much as several kilometers and have winds that can reach speeds of as much as 60 km/h. Dust devils prevail in many locations of Mars and can be found in both the southern and northern hemispheres.
Researchers have made history by taping the very first audio of an extraterrestrial whirlwind on Mars, thanks to the microphone on NASAs Perseverance rover. The research study, led by planetary researcher Naomi Murdoch and a team of researchers at the National Higher French Institute of Aeronautics and Space and NASA, was published in Nature Communications.
Roger Wiens, a professor of earth, climatic and planetary sciences at Purdue Universitys College of Science, leads the instrument group behind the discovery. He is the principal investigator of Perseverances SuperCam, a suite of tools that make up the rovers “head,” consisting of sophisticated remote-sensing instruments, spectrometers, electronic cameras, and the microphone.
The microphone lets us sample, not quite at the speed of sound, but nearly 100,000 times a second. It helps us get a more powerful sense of what Mars is like.”
