Bob Yirka is a writer for Phys.org.
A large team of researchers affiliated with multiple institutions in the U.S., Spain, France and Finland have found that dust devils and daytime upslope winds are the reason for Mars's constant atmospheric haze. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes their study of data from the first 216 sols of Perseverance rovers trek across the surface of parts of the red planet and what they learned from it.
Scientists have known for a long time that Mars looks red due to the amount of dust in the atmosphere. The factors that keep the dust aloft have remained a mystery. The study of dust storms on Mars has shown that they are not frequent enough to explain the persistence of dust in the atmosphere. The researchers studied the data from the Perseverance rover.
Perseverance has a panel of sensors known as the Mars Environment Dynamics Analyzer. Air pressure, temperature and wind speed are monitored. Dust dispersal through sunlight is analyzed by MEDA. The rover has a microphone that can be used to listen to the wind.
Dust devils are very common on Mars, at least on the part of the planet where Perseverance is traveling. There was at least one dust devil in the vicinity of the rover. They found that daytime upslope winds were common. The events were less common than the dust devils, but they pulled more dust from the surface into the atmosphere. The researchers suggest that the wind events provide a reasonable explanation for the persistence of dust in the atmosphere.
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Citation: Dust devils and daytime upslope winds explain Mars's constant haze (2022, May 26) retrieved 26 May 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-05-devils-daytime-upslope-mars-constant.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.
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