A Martian dust devil can be seen consuming its smaller
friend in this short video made of images taken at the rim of Jezero Crater by
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover on Jan. 25, 2025.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI
The six-wheeled explorer recently captured several Red Planet mini-twisters
spinning on the rim of Jezero Crater.
A Martian dust devil can be seen
consuming a smaller one in this short video made of images taken by a navigation camera aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. These swirling, sometimes
towering columns of air and dust are common on Mars. The smaller dust devil’s
demise was captured during an imaging experiment conducted by Perseverance’s
science team to better understand the forces at play in the Martian atmosphere.
When the rover snapped these images
from about 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) away, the larger dust devil was
approximately 210 feet (65 meters) wide, while the smaller, trailing dust devil
was roughly 16 feet (5 meters) wide. Two other dust devils can also be seen in
the background at left and center. Perseverance recorded the scene Jan. 25 as
it explored the western rim of Mars’ Jezero Crater at a location called “Witch
Hazel Hill.”
“Convective vortices — aka dust devils — can be rather fiendish,” said Mark Lemmon, a Perseverance scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “These mini-twisters wander the surface of Mars, picking up dust as they go and lowering the visibility in their immediate area. If two dust devils happen upon each other, they can either obliterate one another or merge, with the stronger one consuming the weaker.”
While exploring the rim of Jezero Crater on Mars,
NASA’s Perseverance rover captured new images of multiple dust devils in
January 2025. These captivating phenomena have been documented for decades by
the agency’s Red Planet robotic explorers. NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/CNRS/INTA-CSIC/Space
Science Institute/ISAE-Supaero/University of Arizona
Science of
Whirlwinds
Dust devils are formed by rising
and rotating columns of warm air. Air near the planet’s surface becomes heated
by contact with the warmer ground and rises through the denser, cooler air
above. As other air moves along the surface to take the place of the rising
warmer air, it begins to rotate. When the incoming air rises into the column,
it picks up speed like a spinning ice skater bringing their arms closer to
their body. The air rushing in also picks up dust, and a dust devil is born.
“Dust devils play a significant role in Martian weather patterns,” said Katie Stack Morgan, project scientist for the Perseverance rover at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Dust devil study is important because these phenomena indicate atmospheric conditions, such as prevailing wind directions and speed, and are responsible for about half the dust in the Martian atmosphere.”
NASA’s Viking 1 orbiter captured this Martian dust
devil casting a shadow on Aug. 1, 1978. During the 15-second interval between
the two images, the dust devil moved toward the northeast (toward the upper
right) at a rate of about 59 feet (18 meters) per second.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Since landing in 2021, Perseverance has imaged whirlwinds on many
occasions, including one on Sept. 27, 2021, where a swarm of dust devils danced across the floor of Jezero Crater and the rover used its SuperCam microphone to record the first sounds of a Martian dust devil.
NASA’s Viking
orbiters, in the
1970s, were the first spacecraft to photograph Martian dust devils. Two decades
later, the agency’s Pathfinder mission was the first to image one from the surface and even detected a dust devil passing
over the lander. Twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity managed to capture their fair share of dusty
whirlwinds. Curiosity, which is exploring a location called Mount Sharp in
Gale Crater on the opposite side of the Red Planet as Perseverance, sees them
as well.
Capturing a dust devil image or
video with a spacecraft takes some luck. Scientists can’t predict when they’ll
appear, so Perseverance routinely monitors in all directions for them. When
scientists see them occur more frequently at a specific time of day or approach
from a certain direction, they use that information to focus their monitoring
to try to catch additional whirlwinds.
“If you feel bad for the little
devil in our latest video, it may give you some solace to know the larger
perpetrator most likely met its own end a few minutes later,” said Lemmon.
“Dust devils on Mars only last about 10 minutes.”
More About
Perseverance
A key objective of Perseverance’s
mission on Mars is astrobiology, including caching samples that may contain signs of
ancient microbial life. The rover is characterizing the planet’s geology and
past climate, to help pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet and
as the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.
NASA’s Mars Sample Return Program,
in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), is designed to send spacecraft
to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to
Earth for in-depth analysis.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission
is part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program (MEP) portfolio and the agency’s
Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for
human exploration of the Red Planet.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
which is managed for the agency by Caltech, built and manages operations of the
Perseverance rover.
For more about Perseverance:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance
Source: Perseverance Rover Witnesses One Martian Dust Devil Eating Another - NASA
