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It’s an exciting time for space travel, since both NASA and SpaceX are aiming to have humans setting foot on Mars in the 2030s.
This will be no mean feat, since the conditions on Mars are not to be underestimated – and if one day human populations are to live on the Red Planet, it would mean finding ways to contend with barriers including the lack of surface water and breathable air, as well as extreme temperatures and radiation levels.
That doesn’t mean it’s not possible – and thankfully, we’ve been researching our neighbor for so long that we have plenty of data (gained both from our home planet, and from rovers on Mars’s surface) to help scientists build the technology to make it possible.
Every now and then, though, new findings about the conditions on Mars astounds everyone. And this time, it was about the voracity of the Red Planet’s dust devils.
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These small but mighty whirlwinds are so named because they pick up dust and debris from the ground, which forms part of their visible swirling power.
They’re the opposite of tornadoes, since dust devils form from the ground instead of coming down from clouds, and thus are significantly less destructive. They can cause harm, but it is thankfully rare – and given their prevalence on Earth, this in itself shouldn’t be something for future Mars-dwellers to really worry about.
Rather, the new paper – which has been recently published in the journal Science Advances – uses two whole decades of images of Mars to gain greater insight into Mars’s dust devils, which in turn has told them a lot about the planet’s weather and climate.
Namely, Mars’s strongest winds are much stronger than we ever realized.
Valentin Bickel et al
By tracking and mapping the movements of dust devils, the University of Bern’s Valentin Bickel explained in a statement, the research team were able to understand and evidence the wind speeds and patterns on Mars like never before:
“Dust devils make the normally invisible wind visible. By measuring their speed and direction of travel we have started mapping the wind all over Mars’s surface. This was impossible before because we didn’t have enough data to make this kind of measurement on a global scale.”
Why is this important? Well because this new information will help space travellers plan for and contend with not only wind, but the extreme dust on Mars, as Bickel continued:
“Information on wind speeds and directions is also really important when planning the arrival of future landers and rovers at Mars. Our measurements could help scientists build up an understanding of wind conditions at a landing site before touchdown, which could help them estimate how much dust might settle on a rover’s solar panels – and therefore how often they should self-clean.”
In these exciting times for space fans, we’re all rooting for Mars missions to be a success. And thank to this research, scientists are more prepared for travel to Mars than ever before.
If you think that’s impressive, check out this story about a “goldmine” of lithium that was found in the U.S. that could completely change the EV battery game.