Dust storm season has arrived on Mars. Over the past few weeks, as the Perseverance rover has been climbing to the rim of Jezero Crater, NASA’s science team has been tracking the increasing amount of dust in the atmosphere.
This is expected, as dust activity is usually highest around this time of the Martian year (early spring in the northern hemisphere). The increased dust activity made views toward the crater more hazardous than usual and provided scientists with an excellent opportunity to study how dust storms form, develop, and spread across the planet.
Perseverance has a set of scientific instruments that are well suited for studying the Martian atmosphere. The Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) provides regular weather reports, the frequency of which increased during the storm to maximize our science work. Scientists are also regularly pointing the Mastcam-Z thermal imager at the sky to estimate the optical density (“tau”) of the atmosphere.
There’s no indication that this regional dust storm will become a global dust storm – like the 2018 global dust storm – but the team is evaluating new atmospheric data every day.
“We hope that the skies will clear up even more as we continue to climb in the coming weeks, as we will have stunning views of the crater floor and the Jezero Delta. This will give the Perseverance team a unique chance to reflect on the tens of kilometers we have traveled and the years we have spent together exploring Mars,” the scientists say.
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