The sound of a Martian dust devil

Journal Article · Mon Dec 12 23:00:00 EST 2022 · Nature Communications

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-35100-z· OSTI ID:2470546

Murdoch, N. ^[1]; Stott, A. E. ^[1]; Gillier, M. ^[1]; Hueso, R. ^[2]; Lemmon, M. ^[3]; Martinez, G. ^[4]; Apéstigue, V. ^[5]; Toledo, D. ^[5]; Lorenz, R. D. ^[6]; Chide, B. ^[7]; Munguira, A. ^[2]; Sánchez-Lavega, A. ^[2]; Vicente-Retortillo, A. ^[8]; Newman, C. E. ^[9]; Maurice, S. ^[10]; de la Torre Juárez, M. ^[11]; Bertrand, T. ^[12]; Banfield, D. ^[13]; Navarro, S. ^[8]; Marin, M. ^[8] ; Torres, J. ^[8]; Gomez-Elvira, J. ^[5]; Jacob, X. ^[10]; Cadu, A. ^[1]; Sournac, A. ^[1]; Rodriguez-Manfredi, J. A. ^[8]; Wiens, R. C. ^[14]; Mimoun, D. ^[1]

---

1. Univ. of Toulouse (France)
2. Universidad del País Vasco, Bilbao (Spain)
3. Space Science Institute, Boulder, CO (United States)
4. Universities Space Research Association, Houston, TX (United States); Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
5. Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial, Madrid (Spain)
6. Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel MD (United States)
7. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
8. Centro de Astrobiología (INTA-CSIC), Madrid (Spain)
9. Aeolis Research, Chandler, AZ (United States)
10. Univ. of Toulouse (France); Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) (France)
11. California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
12. Sorbonne Univ., Paris (France); Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) (France)
13. Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY (United States); Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA (United States)
14. Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States)

Dust devils (convective vortices loaded with dust) are common at the surface of Mars, particularly at Jezero crater, the landing site of the Perseverance rover. They are indicators of atmospheric turbulence and are an important lifting mechanism for the Martian dust cycle. Improving our understanding of dust lifting and atmospheric transport is key for accurate simulation of the dust cycle and for the prediction of dust storms, in addition to being important for future space exploration as grain impacts are implicated in the degradation of hardware on the surface of Mars. Here we describe the sound of a Martian dust devil as recorded by the SuperCam instrument on the Perseverance rover. The dust devil encounter was also simultaneously imaged by the Perseverance rover’s Navigation Camera and observed by several sensors in the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer instrument. Combining these unique multi-sensorial data with modelling, we show that the dust devil was around 25 m large, at least 118 m tall, and passed directly over the rover travelling at approximately 5 m s^–1. Acoustic signals of grain impacts recorded during the vortex encounter provide quantitative information about the number density of particles in the vortex. The sound of a Martian dust devil was inaccessible until SuperCam microphone recordings. This chance dust devil encounter demonstrates the potential of acoustic data for resolving the rapid wind structure of the Martian atmosphere and for directly quantifying wind-blown grain fluxes on Mars.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• Grant/Contract Number: 89233218CNA000001
• OSTI ID: 2470546
• Journal Information: Nature Communications, Journal Name: Nature Communications Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 13; ISSN 2041-1723
• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
Atmospheric dynamics
Inner planets