The journal Nature Communications shared new data this week indicating the first-ever findings of the sounds produced by the Dust Devil. Find details about it here.
What are Martian dust demons? What did NASA discover about them? Discover it here
NASA’s Perseverance rover encountered a windy whistle last September when a dust devil on Mars passed over it. The captured sound is now published in the journal Nature Communications this week. The latest data revealed from Perseverance is the sound of an unexpected encounter with a dust devil.
The rover has microphones and cameras to record images and sounds on Mars. Understanding how dust devils work can be a huge leap in understanding the Martian system for future space exploration and human travel to Mars.
What are dust devils?
- Martian dust devils on Mars are very common. They look like a mini tornado on the surface, swirling dust into the ground.
- They occur primarily during the day and are driven by convection in the tenuous layers of the atmosphere coming from the distant sun.
- The Perseverance rover landed last year in that area of Jezero Crater, where these convective vortices are especially common.
- Martian dust devils can be up to fifty times wider and ten times taller than Earth dust devils, and the largest ones can pose a threat to Earth-based technology sent to Mars.
What is the purpose of a Dust Devil?
- The Dust Devil plays a fundamental role in the mixing and dispersion of heat, dust and minerals from the planet’s surface, and are indicators of atmospheric turbulence.
- While studying these Dust Devils, planetary scientists can also simulate these weather phenomena and predict dust storms on Mars.
- Through them you can also understand how the hardware of the robots on Mars will last and function.
History of dust devils
- It was in the 1970s that Viking orbiters first photographed the first Martian dust devils.
- The Mars Pathfinder lander detected a dust devil passing over it in 1997.
- In 2016, on November 7, the Mars Orbiter mission captured in a single observation five such dust devils floating in the southern Martian hemisphere, with heights between 0.5 and 1.9 km.
- On March 12, 2005, mission members monitoring the Spirit rover on Mars reported that an encounter with a dust devil had cleared that rover’s solar panels.
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Categories: Optical Illusion
Source: ptivs2.edu.vn