Perseverance Rover Records Encounter with a Martian Dust Devil

The recording was made last year and following investigation of the data has been published today along with details of the windy encounter.

A towering dust storm that engulfed the Mars Perseverance rover in September 2021 was a colossal 390.4 feet (119 meters) tall, the first-ever audio recording of a dust devil on the surface of Mars reveals.

The recording, an analysis of which was published Tuesday (Dec. 13) in the journal Nature Communications(opens in new tab), also reveals brand-new information about how these short-lived phenomena move dust around on the Red Planet.

"We can actually hear the noise of particles impacting the rover," study lead author Naomi Murdoch, a physicist at the National Higher French Institute of Aeronautics and Space (ISAE-SUPAERO) at the University of Toulouse in France, told Live Science. "The sound of these impacts allows us to count how many particles were in the vortex."

These are images taken of the direct dust devil encounter by the the rover’s Navigation Camera (Navcam). The images have been processed to show the quantity of dust. The colour scale ranges from lowest dust content (blue) to highest dust content (yellow).

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Looks like an intentional attack to me.

a reply to: gortex

Ak ak ak ak!!



Or is it…

All we are is dust in the wind??

Thanks for the share!! Earthquakes, wind, dust devils, all we need is some atmosphere to get rain!

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Do not run; we are your friends!

Honestly, though, very cool sound recording and shows just how the weather there can work. I know we're not going to get a "The Martian" class of storm, but seeing what is there is really beneficial long term if we want to inhabit the planet.

a reply to: gortex

And slowly and surely they drew their plans against us!!

Maybe the Martians are going to attack us with dust devils and that was just their first test?!?!

On a serious note
Thanks for posting the vid from percy, I would have missed it otherwise.

a reply to: gortex

So who won .........

What a cool insight into how the weather does its thing on Mars.

a reply to: Kurokage
This made me think of that scene toward the beginning of Mission To Mars (2000) when they were investigating the martian surface and a vortex appeared (that did not end well for the astronauts).

a reply to: wavelength

Good flick!!!
Now I gotta watch it again.

S&F just for that!

Cheers…..

a reply to: wavelength

This made me think of that scene toward the beginning of Mission To Mars (2000) when they were investigating the martian surface and a vortex appeared (that did not end well for the astronauts).

Haven't seen that flick in a long time and will have to go hunting for it now!