NASA’s Perseverance Rover has spotted a dust-filled tornado on Mars. These dusty tornadoes also occur on Earth. They are formed when warm air combines with a column of cold air coming down. Tornadoes on Mars can be much larger than those found on Earth.
According to team officials, on August 30, the 899th Martian day, or sol, of the mission, NASA’s Perseverance rover sent a video of a dust storm near the surface of Mars. It was growing along the western rim of Mars’ Jezero Crater.
Scientists Said This
The rover’s Navcam made the video. “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 scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado and a member of the Perseverance science team.
“Most are vertical columns,” Lemon said. If this dust devil were configured this way, its shadow would indicate that it is about 1.2 miles (2 kilometres) high.
Spot the dust devil ????@NASAPersevere captured a dust devil moving over Jezero Crater. The video is sped up 20x, and though only the lower portion of the dust devil can be seen, scientists estimate it to be about 1.2 miles (2 km) tall. https://t.co/1U8XuPe4oZ pic.twitter.com/ua4L2b1kGt
— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) September 29, 2023
Using data from the imagery, mission scientists determined that the tornado was located about four kilometres away at a location called ‘Thorofare Ridge’. They were moving from east to west at about 19 kilometres per hour.
He estimated its width to be about 60 meters, while only the lower 118-meter part of the rotating vortex is visible in the camera frame. Scientists used the shadow of the tornado to estimate its overall height of about two kilometres.
Most Tornadoes Occur In Summer and Spring
Tornadoes on Mars occur most frequently during the spring and summer months. Scientists cannot predict when they will appear in a particular place. The six-wheeled Perseverance landed on the floor of the 45 km wide Jezero Crater in February 2021. An important objective of Perseverance’s mission to Mars is astronomy, which also includes the search for signs of ancient microbial life.
