LOS ANGELES, Sept. 29, 2023 (Xinhua) — NASA said on Friday that its Perseverance rover has detected the “dust devil” phenomenon on Mars.
The dust-filled Martian tornado was observed moving along the western rim of Jezero Crater on Mars by the Perseverance rover on August 30, the mission’s 899th Martian day, according to NASA.
Dust devils are generally much weaker and smaller than terrestrial hurricanes, and are one of the mechanisms that move and redistribute dust around Mars. Scientists are studying it to better understand the Martian atmosphere and improve the climate patterns associated with it.
Dust devils, which also occur on Earth, are formed when rising cells of warm air mix with descending columns of cold air. The Martian versions could grow to be much larger than those on Earth, according to NASA.
The “Perseverance” rover was launched from Florida on July 30, 2020 and landed safely on Mars in February 2021. It is the first rover to bring a temporary storage system to Mars, which helps store promising samples and return them to Earth on future missions.
It is noteworthy that the main goal of Perseverance on the Red Planet is to search for signs of microbial organisms that may have grown on the Red Planet billions of years ago.
