Dust devils – vertical columns of hot air and particles – may seem like a weather phenomenon that only occurs on Earth.
But new images captured by NASA’s Perseverance rover show one as high as 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) on the surface of Mars.
Perseverance captured the dust devil as it moved from east to west at about 12 miles per hour at Thorofare Ridge, located on the western edge of Mars’ Jezero Crater.
It was about 4 kilometers away from the six-wheeled rover, which landed on Mars in February 2021 after a nearly seven-month journey through space.
In addition to collecting rock samples and making oxygen, Perseverance also acts as a pair of eyes on Mars, allowing scientists to learn about the planet’s weather from 250 million miles away.
The dust devil (circled) was filmed by Perseverance from about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) away
The clip – which has been sped up to show the devil’s progress – consists of 21 frames spaced four seconds apart, according to NASA.
In a blog postscientists at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) explained that the dust devil was captured by one of Perseverance’s ‘Navcams’.
These black-and-white navigation cameras, mounted at the top of the rover’s long ‘neck’, use visible light to collect panoramic 3D images.
Although only the lower 118 meters of the swirling vortex was visible in the camera frame, scientists used the dust devil’s shadow to estimate its entire height at 2 kilometers.
“We don’t see the top of the dust devil, but the shadow it casts gives us a good indication of its height,” said Mark Lemmon, a planetary scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and a member of the Perseverance science team .
‘Most are vertical columns; If this dust devil were configured this way, its shadow would indicate it is about 1.2 miles tall.”
The dust devil is shown in the background with regolith – a blanket of loose dust, broken rocks and other Martian fragment – in the foreground
The six-wheeled rover is on Mars to search for signs of ancient life, search for water and collect samples of Martian soil and rocks to one day return to Earth
The accelerated clip was captured on August 30, the 899th Martian day, or “sol,” of the Perseverance mission.
One sol lasts 24 hours and 37 minutes – slightly longer than one Earth day.
As on Earth, dust devils form when rising cells of warm air mix with descending columns of cooler air, carrying dust and debris with them.
But the versions on Mars could grow much larger than those on Earth, due to the lower gravity and abundance of dust on our neighboring planet.
Dust devils are also most prominent during the spring and summer months, when temperatures are warmer.
This is because the hot air near the ground quickly rises through the cooler air above, which can cause the updraft.
The northern hemisphere of Mars, where Perseverance is located, is currently in summer.
Perseverance has been tasked with searching in all directions for dust devils to help scientists on the ground monitor the weather on Mars.
It takes images in black and white to reduce the amount of data sent to Earth, meaning less waiting to see what Perseverance sees.
Dust devils are also most prominent during the spring and summer months, when temperatures are warmer. This is because the hot air near the ground quickly rises through the cooler air above, which can cause the updraft. The northern hemisphere of Mars, where Perseverance is located, is currently in summer
A full-scale test model of the Perseverance rover currently on Mars is shown during a press conference for the Mars Sample Return mission in the Mars Yard at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California on April 11, 2023
But the rover’s main purpose is to search for traces of fossilized microbial life and collect rock samples to return to Earth.
For more than two years, people have been rummaging around the Jezero crater collecting rock samples and placing them in a titanium tube.
The Jezero Crater was the chosen location because scientists believe the area was once flooded with water and was home to an ancient river delta.
Secrets about this body of water, if it even existed, could be locked away in the rock samples, ready for scientists on Earth to unravel.
However, Perseverance doesn’t return the monsters to Earth; the rover stores the tubes in certain locations so that they can be collected by a very ambitious retrieval mission.
Samples are taken from the Jezero crater near a fossilized four-billion-year-old river delta that could contain signs of ancient life
This joint mission between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) is currently in development, although reportedly not much progress is being made on it.
A report released last week by NASA’s Institutional Review Board suggested there is a risk the launch will not go ahead due to costs and “complexities.”
It said: ‘There is currently no credible, congruent technical, nor well-marginalized schedule, cost and technical baseline that can be achieved with the likely available funding.’