Understanding dust devils could help to keep future crewed and robotic missions to Mars safe.
The wind picks up momentarily, and a pillar of swirling dust forms and moves across a barren landscape. It's a scenario that can take place here in the deserts of Earth and in the harsh landscape of Mars.
Though they're usually harmless on Earth, dust devils can grow to formidable sizes and pose a serious risk to future robotic and crewed missions on the red planet — not least because most of these will rely on solar panels that must remain clean to operate.
in the vicinity of its landing site on the red planet's ancient, dried-up lakebed, the Jezero Crater. The photos, taken so close to the Perseverance rover's landing site, show that, though the phenomena are difficult to predict and capture, they are not uncommon. "The abundance of dust devils on Mars could have implications for the lifetimes of many missions. Dust devils have already played a role in past missions," Urtecho explained in the press statement. "Opportunity and Spirit rovers' lives were extended because friendly dust devils blew dust off their solar panels. But Opportunity eventually succumbed to a global dust storm on Mars, showing the importance of dust loading in the atmosphere.
"The hope is that with our dust devil detector, we will be able to learn more about the formation characteristics of convective vortices and how they move across various landscapes," Urtecho explained. "This will improve the accuracy of Martian weather models, which has a direct impact not only in understanding dust cycles on Mars and the role they have played in its evolution but also the operation of future robotic and possibly crewed missions.
France Dernières Nouvelles, France Actualités
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