The NASA Mars Perseverance Rover has been dealing with dust devils in Jezero crater. Meanwhile, he has revealed new secrets about the planet.
Since NASA Mars Perseverance Rover first landed in February 2021, it has been collecting rock samples, analyzing the terrain and trying to find evidence of ancient microbial life on the planet. However, its mission has been affected by one of the harshest weather phenomena on the planet called dust devils in Jezero Crater, the rover’s landing site. Dust devils are huge eddies that carry and move dust along with it. But in his more than 200 days of planetary exploration, he has also begun to study these dust devils. And it turns out that scientists have discovered new information about Mars because of this.
Details of these observations have also been documented in an article published in the journal Science Advances. The document has pointed out the weather conditions on Mars during the first 216 Martian days the rover spent. NASA has stated that the study has allowed it to better understand the dust processes on Mars and has taken them one step closer to predicting them.
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NASA Mars Perseverance Rover studies dust devils
The observations needed to document these meteorological phenomena were made primarily using Mars Perseverance Rover cameras, as well as a body-specific sensor called the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA). With its wind and light sensors, MEDA can detect eddies around the rover. In 2021, Perseverance even captured a video of a Martian dust gust. You can check out the video here.
“Every time we land in a new place on Mars, it’s an opportunity to better understand the planet’s climate. We had a regional dust storm just in January, but we’re still in the middle of the dust season, so it’s very we’ll probably see more dust storms, ”the study’s lead author, Claire Newman, told NASA.
Jezero crater is also called one of the most active sources of dust on the planet. The study noted that NASA’s rover Perseverance faced at least four eddies on average on Mars. Some of the dust clouds formed by these gusts of wind were up to 4 square kilometers. As the rover studies the environment of the red planet, scientists hope to learn more about this unique phenomenon.