Orbital Observations of Dust Lofted by Daytime Convective Turbulence

Abstract

54Orbital studies of terrestrial dust devils would provide a basis for comparative planetology that would broaden the 55 understanding of these dusty vortices on both planets. 56 57 58

Convective vortices and dust devils detected and characterized by Mars 2020

“…DDs constitute an important element of the Martian atmospheric dust cycle thought to account for a significative part of the background dust haze on Mars (Newman et al, 2002;Basu et al, 2004;Kahre et al, 2006Kahre et al, , 2017. In addition, DDs can change the local albedo creating Dust Devil Tracks (DDTs) (Fenton et al, 2016;Reiss et al, 2016) and can also 'clean' dust off spacecraft surfaces (Vicente-Retortillo et al, 2018), including solar panels (R. D. Lorenz & Reiss, 2015), enabling solar-powered missions to last longer. Conversely, dust grains carried by the strong vortex winds can represent a hazard to surface hardware (Balme & Greeley, 2006).…”

MarsWRF Convective Vortex and Dust Devil Predictions for Gale Crater Over 3 Mars Years and Comparison With MSL‐REMS Observations

“…Rotation is randomly clockwise or counterclockwise, and vortices often occur in pairs or clusters (Balme & Greeley, ). They may extend to at least the height of the planetary boundary layer (PBL), which commonly extends to ~2–3 km in Earth's deserts and to ~10–12 km over many parts of Mars and significantly higher in some regions; dust devils with heights up to 16.5 km have been identified in some regions (Fenton et al, ; Fenton & Lorenz, ). Dust devils are vortices that contain dust, making them visible; this dust is raised via strong tangential winds around the vortex core, assisted by the “suction effect” of the pressure drop and other thermophysical factors (see, e.g., Neakrase et al, for a review of all processes that have been proposed).…”

“…Mars vortices, hence dust devils, can grow much larger than on Earth. Hence while the largest on Earth may reach a few tens of m in diameter, on Mars they may reach or order a km in diameter (Fenton et al, ). Detection of vortices is typically accomplished by detecting their pressure drop signature, with wind (speed and direction) and temperature also measurably affected when a vortex passes close enough to the sensors (e.g., Kahanpää et al, ; Murphy et al, ; see also section ).…”