InSight was designed to study both the inside of Mars and its atmosphere. An announcement that is likely to generate confusion is the discovery of gravity waves in the Martian atmosphere. This is one of those times when different branches of science have given radically different things confusingly similar names.

Gravity waves are just oscillations in the atmosphere that drive the formation of the rolling sheets of wavy clouds you may have seen, especially at dawn or dusk. While Gravitational Waves are driven by massive objects and warp the space time continuum, gravity waves are just pretty.

On Mars, with its thin dry atmosphere, clouds are less common, but the InSight sensors could detect the pressure changes that come with gravity waves moving through the atmosphere. These sensitive sensors also detected the pressure and temperature changes consistent with dust devils – thousands of dust devils – but annoyingly the cameras on InSight have failed to be able to see any of the dust devils.

The annoyance is stated beautifully by team scientist, Cornell researcher Don Banfield, who stated, “We’ve caught absolutely no dust devils on camera. Other landers have more effortlessly imaged dust devils, so it’s surprising that we haven’t even captured an image of one.” This is where the importance of in situ instruments – sensors in place on the surface of mars – can be. Orbiters and distant telescopic observers can’t see these pressure variations, but the sensors can make out these invisible cyclones and hidden gravity waves.

More Information

• A Year of Surprising Science From NASA’s InSight Mars Mission (NASA)
• InSight detects gravity waves, low rumbles and devilish dust (Cornell)