Wind and Turbulence Observations With the Mars Microphone on Perseverance

Stott, Alexander; Murdoch, Naomi; Gillier, Martin; Banfield, Don; Bertrand, Tanguy; Chide, Baptiste; Juárez, Manuel de la Torre; Hueso, R.; Lorenz, Ralph D.; Martı́nez, G.; Munguira, Asier; Mora-Sotomayor, Luis; Navarro, Sara; Newman, Claire; Pilleri, P.; Pla‐García, Jorge; Rodríguez‐Manfredi, J. A.; Sánchez‐Lavega, Agustín; Smith, M. D.; Viúdez‐Moreiras, Daniel; Williams, Nathan; Maurice, S.; Wiens, Roger C.; Mimoun, David

doi:10.1029/2022je007547

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 76 publications

(188 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…(2022) and Stott et al. (2023) found a definitive recording of nocturnal turbulence on sol 454 ( L s ∼ 237°) just after midnight (∼00:21 LTST) attributed to wind (Stott et al., 2023, Figure 2e), inside our studied period 23:00–01:00 where we observed the greatest nocturnal turbulence (Figure 5 and Figures S5 and S6 in Supporting Information ). Combining the sampling rate of MEDA with the high sampling rate of the microphone, the suite of sensors on Perseverance will enable the characterization of nocturnal turbulence at a wider range of scales than ever before.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Nocturnal Turbulence at Jezero Crater as Determined From MEDA Measurements and Modeling

et al. 2023

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Mars 2020 Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) instrument data acquired during half of a Martian year (Ls 13°–180°), and modeling efforts with the Mars Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (MRAMS) and the Mars Climate Database (MCD) enable the study of the seasonal evolution and variability of nocturnal atmospheric turbulence at Jezero crater. Nighttime conditions in Mars's Planetary Boundary Layer are highly stable because of strong radiative cooling that efficiently inhibits convection. However, MEDA nighttime observations of simultaneous rapid fluctuations in horizontal wind speed and air temperatures suggest the development of nighttime turbulence in Jezero crater. Mesoscale modeling with MRAMS also shows a similar pattern and enables us to investigate the origins of this turbulence and the mechanisms at play. As opposed to Gale crater, less evidence of turbulence from breaking mountain wave activity was found in Jezero during the period studied with MRAMS. On the contrary, the model suggests that nighttime turbulence at Jezero crater is explained by increasingly strong wind shear produced by the development of an atmospheric bore‐like disturbance at the nocturnal inversion interface. These atmospheric bores are produced by downslope winds from the west rim undercutting a strong low‐level jet aloft from ∼19:00 to 01:00 LTST and from ∼01:00 LTST to dawn when undercutting weak winds aloft. The enhanced wind shear leads to a reduction in the Richardson number and an onset of mechanical turbulence. Once the critical Richardson Number is reached (Ri ∼ <0.25), shear instabilities can mix warmer air aloft down to the surface.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Nocturnal Turbulence at Jezero Crater as Determined From MEDA Measurements and Modeling

et al. 2023

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Wind speed and temperature fluctuation are thus smaller during nighttime. In this section we will focus on the Martian atmosphere at 12 LTST as it is the time of day when the turbulent fluctuations in both temperature and wind speed are at their maximum (Munguira et al, 2023;Stott et al, 2023;Viúdez-Moreiras, de la Torre, et al, 2022).…”

Section: The Effect Of Atmospheric Turbulencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…More recently, Mars has seen the operation of the Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) and SuperCam microphones (Mimoun et al, 2023) on NASA's Perseverance rover, as well as a microphone on the Chinese National Space Administration's Zhurong rover (Zou et al, 2021). These microphones have already provided insights into the acoustic properties of the Martian atmosphere, either by capturing sounds from artificial sources like the Ingenuity helicopter (Lorenz et al, 2023) and the Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) experiment (Chide et al, 2022(Chide et al, , 2023 or by recording signals generated by the Martian environment, such as wind patterns (Stott et al, 2023) and a dust devil with the associated saltation (Murdoch et al, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Acoustic Propagation in the Near‐Surface Martian Atmosphere

Gillier,

Petculescu,

Stott

et al. 2024

JGR Planets

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This work introduces a comprehensive model of sound propagation on Mars, in light of the recent operation of several microphones on the Martian surface. The main outcome of this work is an operational acoustic model capable of simulating the sound field created by any source, at any location on the Martian surface, at any time. Expanding on the result of previous work (Gillier et al., 2024, https://doi.org/10.1029/2023je008257), we use the parabolic equation method for sound propagation in order to obtain the overall sound field produced by a source, in a given atmospheric composition and state, and accounting for ground properties. The resulting model enables the study of acoustics on Mars, and has the potential also to be used to probe the properties of the Martian environment using acoustic measurements with known sources. We investigate the effects of the Martian ground and the vertical profile of temperature and wind, on sound propagation. We find that the ground has a minor effect on sound propagation, and the wind profile strongly influences sound propagation as on Earth. However, the midday near surface temperature profiles on Mars are shown to cause refraction, which generates non‐negligible acoustic losses that are an order of magnitude stronger than typical refraction‐related acoustic losses on Earth. We show that the effect of the Martian atmospheric turbulence is to slightly reduce the acoustic losses due to refraction. Finally, we apply our model to show that refraction and atmospheric turbulence have a negligible effect on the propagation of sound from Ingenuity to the Perseverance rover.

show abstract

“…It is the latter, unstable conditions, that tend to enhance the boundary layer turbulence in the daytime (e.g., Senel et al 2019). An enhanced turbulence implies enhanced atmospheric mixing, more wind gustiness (Stott et al 2023), and also a larger number of convective cells and vortices, unless the wind shear is particularly strong (Spiga et al 2021).…”

Section: The Planetary Boundary Layermentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating Diurnal and Seasonal Turbulence Variations of the Martian Atmosphere Using a Spectral Approach

Murdoch,

Stott,

Mimoun

et al. 2023

Planet. Sci. J.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We use a spectral approach to analyze the pressure and wind data from the InSight mission and investigate the diurnal and seasonal trends. Our analyses show that the daytime pressure and wind spectra have slopes of approximately −1.7 and −1.3 and, therefore, do not follow the Kolmogorov scaling (as was also previously reported for a reduced data set in Banfield et al.). We find that the nighttime pressure spectral slope is close to −1 (as reported in Temel et al.), and that the wind speed spectral slope is close to −0.5, flatter than the theoretical slope expected for the shear-dominated regime. We observe strong nocturnal (likely shear-generated) turbulent behavior starting around L s = 150° (InSight sol 440) that shifts to progressively earlier local times before reaching the “5th season” (InSight sols 530–710) identified by Chatain et al.. The diurnal spectral slope analyses indicate an asymmetry in the diurnal behavior of the Martian boundary layer, with a slow growth and fast collapse mechanism. Finally, the low-frequency (5–30 mHz) pressure data exhibit large spectral slope oscillations. These occur particularly during the periods with a highly stable atmosphere and, therefore, may be linked to gravity wave activity.

show abstract

Wind and Turbulence Observations With the Mars Microphone on Perseverance

Cited by 6 publications

References 76 publications

Nocturnal Turbulence at Jezero Crater as Determined From MEDA Measurements and Modeling

Nocturnal Turbulence at Jezero Crater as Determined From MEDA Measurements and Modeling

Acoustic Propagation in the Near‐Surface Martian Atmosphere

Investigating Diurnal and Seasonal Turbulence Variations of the Martian Atmosphere Using a Spectral Approach

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About