“We hit the bull’s eye,” said Naomi Murdoch, a planetary scientist at France’s Isae-Supaero Space Research Institute and lead author of the study, published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.
The researchers hope the recording will give a better understanding of the Red Planet’s weather and climate – including how its arid surface and thin atmosphere may have once supported life.
Ephemeral vortices full of dust
Dust devils are short-lived eddies of dust-laden air that are common on the surface of Mars. They arise as a result of large differences between soil and air temperatures. They are observed particularly frequently in the Jezero Crater, where the “Perseverance” rover, the size of an off-road vehicle, has been in use since February 2021. So far, however, he had never been able to record one of the vertebrae.
This time, however, the rover’s SuperCam microphone caught the muffled, whirring sounds of the dust devil for the first time. “We hear the wind that accompanies the dust devil the moment it arrives – and then nothing because we’re right in the middle of its eye,” Murdoch said. Then the sound returns as “the microphone traverses the second wall” of the dust devil. The sounds made by the dust’s impact now allow researchers to study the cyclone’s structure and behavior, Murdoch said.
Recording might lead to puzzle solving
The recording might also help solve a mystery that has long puzzled scientists: In some places on Mars, “hurricanes pass by and suck up dust while cleaning the rover’s solar panels.” In other areas, however, the hurricanes pass without raising much dust. “They just move air,” said Murdoch, the researchers mightn’t explain why.
Research interactions between soil and atmosphere
Analysis of Martian dust now also makes it possible to explore the interactions between the soil and the planet’s extremely thin atmosphere, said researcher and study co-author Sylvestre Maurice. According to him, billions of years ago the atmosphere was much thicker – a prerequisite for the existence of vital water.
“One might think that studying today’s Martian climate has nothing to do with looking for traces of life from billions of years ago,” he said. But everything is “part of a whole”. Because the history of Mars is a history of extreme climatic changes – from a humid, hot to a completely dry and cold planet.
