Another paper in Science Advances explains a different martian phenomenon – the constant atmospheric haze. An international team of researchers studied data from 216 sols’ worth (those are martian days) of Perseverance observations on air pressure, temperature, and wind speed. And the result is that dust stays aloft on Mars because of dust devils.

First, it’s aurorae and now, it’s dust devils. Mars is awesome.

It turns out that dust devils actually occur pretty frequently on the red planet, with at least one popping up near Percy every day. And those swirling bits of dust are one of the reasons the air is hazy – they help replenish dust that may have settled. Plus there are also upslope winds that, while less common, pull more dust into the atmosphere. Between the two processes, Mars gets to stay hazy much of the time.

As the red planet heads into its winter season, the frequency of larger dust storms will increase, making sure that the atmosphere remains hazy. That’s why we’re losing InSight and probably Ingenuity this year – all that dust also blocks out the sunlight that charges their batteries via solar panels.

More Information

Dust devils and daytime upslope winds explain Mars’s constant haze (Phys.org)

“The dynamic atmospheric and aeolian environment of Jezero crater, Mars,” Claire E. Newman et al., 2022 May 25, Science Advances