For decades, we’ve known that Mars is a dusty world.
Its red surface is constantly shaped by wind, storms, and whirlwinds that dance across its deserts.
Now, thanks to a new study, scientists have mapped more than a thousand of these whirlwinds—known as “dust devils”—to uncover just how fast the Martian winds can blow.
The results reveal winds stronger than anyone expected and provide new insights into Mars’s climate, weather, and the challenges of future exploration.
The study, published in Science Advances, was led by Valentin Bickel of the University of Bern in Switzerland.
His team combined 20 years of data from two European spacecraft: the Mars Express, in orbit since 2004, and the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, which arrived in 2016.
Using advanced image analysis and machine learning, the researchers tracked 1,039 dust devils and created the first global catalog of their movements, speeds, and directions.
Dust devils are small, tornado-like whirlwinds that form when warm air rises quickly and twists into a spinning column.
On Mars, they can stretch hundreds of meters tall and sweep across vast plains. Unlike Earth, where rain clears dust from the sky, Martian dust lingers for months or even years, spreading across the planet and influencing its climate.
By studying the paths of these dust devils, the researchers discovered wind speeds reaching up to 44 meters per second—about 158 kilometers per hour. That’s much faster than winds recorded by rovers on the ground. However, because Mars’s atmosphere is so thin—just about 1% of Earth’s—these powerful gusts would barely be felt by a human standing there. A 100 km/h wind on Mars would feel more like a gentle breeze on Earth.
Still, dust devils are far from harmless. They lift huge amounts of dust into the air, which can dim sunlight, cool the planet during the day, and trap heat at night. Dust particles can also act as seeds for clouds to form, and in massive storms, they can help water vapor escape into space. For spacecraft and rovers, dust is even more problematic, coating solar panels and limiting their ability to generate power. NASA’s Opportunity rover, for example, was lost in 2018 after a global dust storm blanketed its panels.
The new catalog highlights not just how fast these whirlwinds move, but where they are most likely to form. Dust devils appear across the Martian globe, even on towering volcanoes, but they cluster in certain regions, such as Amazonis Planitia, a vast plain covered in fine dust. They also tend to form in the spring and summer of each hemisphere, during the late morning to early afternoon—just like their Earthly counterparts in deserts like Arizona.
This big-picture view of Martian winds has never been possible before. Rovers and landers can only monitor small patches of the surface, while orbiters usually provide static images. By turning a quirk of imaging technology into a tool, the researchers were able to measure dust devil movements. When spacecraft cameras take images in different colors or directions, a short delay occurs between frames. For static landscapes, this makes no difference. But for moving objects like dust devils, it creates small shifts, or “offsets,” in the final image. What was once considered image noise became a clever way to measure speed.
The researchers found that in many areas, dust devils move faster than existing Mars climate models predict. This suggests that more dust may be lifted into the atmosphere than previously thought, meaning models of Martian weather need updating. These results also have practical applications: they can help plan future missions. Knowing where dust devils are most common can guide the design of rovers, landers, and solar panels, as well as predict cleaning cycles for equipment.
Europe’s ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover, planned for launch in 2030, will avoid landing during Mars’s stormiest seasons. Data from this new dust devil catalog could help ensure it lands safely and stays functional.
Perhaps most exciting, the catalog is public. Anyone can access the data and use it for their own research. As Mars Express and ExoMars TGO continue to take images every day, more dust devils will be added, giving scientists an ever-sharper picture of how Mars’s climate works.
As Valentin Bickel explains, “Dust devils make the normally invisible wind visible. By tracking their movements, we are finally mapping Mars’s winds on a global scale.”
What began as image noise has become a treasure trove of science, transforming dusty twisters into guides for unlocking the secrets of Mars’s restless atmosphere.
Source: KSR.
