And with these ‘dust devils’ collected into a single public catalogue, this research is just the beginning.
Their catalogue is the first ever to include the speeds and directions of motions for dust devils all over Mars.
The map above shows the locations of all 1039 dust devils, and the direction of motion for 373.
The catalogue also highlights that dust devils are most common in the spring and summer of each hemisphere.
It’s difficult to understate the importance of the dust cycle.” Notes for editors ‘Dust Devil Migration Patterns Reveal Strong Near-surface Winds across Mars’ by Bickel et al.
08/10/2025 3236 views, 33 likes.
Just a little.
By analyzing 20 years’ worth of data from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter spacecraft, researchers have identified 1039 tornado-like whirlwinds that show how dust is blown across the surface of Mars and lifted into the atmosphere.
Their research, which was published today in Science Advances, provides us with a much better understanding of the weather and climate of the Red Planet. One of their findings is that the strongest winds on Mars blow far faster than we previously believed.
Furthermore, this research is only the first step in compiling these “dust devils” into a single public catalogue. Apart from being purely scientific, it will be helpful in organizing upcoming missions, such as including provisions for the annoying dust that accumulates on our robotic rovers’ solar panels.
Detailed.
Because of the Mars rovers and orbiters, we have been witnessing dust devils for decades. Being the first to monitor the movement of so many of these twisters to determine precisely how they move across the surface of Mars, this study goes a great deal further.
Valentin Bickel, who is from the University of Bern in Switzerland, led the research. Their catalog is the first to ever include the motion directions and speeds of dust devils across Mars.
“Dust devils reveal the wind that is normally invisible,” says Valentin. We have begun mapping the wind across the entire surface of Mars by determining their velocity and direction of travel. Due to a lack of data, this type of measurement on a global scale was previously impossible. “.”.
With its enormous volcanoes and gigantic craters, Mars is a striking planet. What is the point of concentrating on something as uninteresting as dust?
Dust can act as a blanket to retain warmth at night and shield the Sun to keep temperatures lower during the day. Additionally, dust particles can serve as the precursors of clouds, and dust storms can even drive water vapor out into space.
In contrast to Earth, where rain removes it from the atmosphere, dust can remain in Mars’ atmosphere for a very long time and be blown throughout the planet. Scientists are therefore interested in learning the time, location, and mechanism of dust lift from the surface into the atmosphere in order to better understand Mars’ climate.
Better picture, more data.
In this new study, scientists trained a neural network to identify dust devils and then combed through photos taken by ExoMars TGO since 2016 and Mars Express since 2004 to create a catalog of 1039 of them.
All 1039 dust devil locations are displayed on the map above, along with 373’s motion direction. Numerous dust devils are swept up from specific “source regions,” despite the fact that they are present throughout Mars, including on its tall volcanoes. For instance, a large number of them were concentrated in Amazonis Planitia, a vast area of Mars covered in a thin layer of sand and dust (upper left of the map).
Wind speeds of up to 44 m/s, or 158 km/h, were discovered by the researchers by monitoring the dust devils’ movements. Despite the fact that the Martian air is so thin that a human would hardly notice a wind of 100 km/h on Mars, this is faster than we have ever measured with rovers on the ground.
The majority of the time, the dust devils were being blown across the terrain more quickly than our current Mars weather models indicated, the researchers discovered. We might not realize how much dust is being lifted from the ground in areas where wind speeds are higher than anticipated.
Earth and Mars both have seasons. The catalog also notes that each hemisphere’s spring and summer are when dust devils are most prevalent. They usually occur during the day and last a few minutes, peaking between 11:00 and 14:00 local solar time.
This is quite comparable to what we observe on Earth, where dust devils are most prevalent in arid, dusty areas in the late morning to early afternoon during the summer.
Improved image, safer investigation.
Big-picture views like this require a lot of data, which rovers and landers cannot gather on their own. The scant data we have from missions that don’t really cover much of the planet’s surface has up until now served as the foundation for our models of Mars’ climate.
We now have a wealth of new measurements from all over Mars, which will help us improve and inform the models, thanks to this study. This helps us better understand and forecast the Red Planet’s wind patterns.
Valentin adds, “When arranging the arrival of future landers and rovers at Mars, information on wind speeds and directions is also really important.”. By gaining insight into wind conditions at a landing site prior to touchdown, our measurements may help scientists determine how much dust might accumulate on a rover’s solar panels and, consequently, how frequently it should self-clean. “.”.
We are already planning our next missions using dust data. The goal of our ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover is to land on Mars in 2030, avoiding the planet’s dust storm season.
Valentin emphasizes that “anyone can use this catalogue of dust devil tracks for their own research as it is already public.”. Mars Express and ExoMars TGO are gathering new photos every day, so more entries will be added over time. “.”.
With this newfound knowledge, we can target additional photos to the precise locations and times where dust devils typically occur. In order to validate the data and compare the movement measurements, we are also planning the missions to image the same dust devils simultaneously. “”.
Gold from noise.
In reality, measuring wind speeds on Mars was never the goal of ExoMars TGO or Mars Express. To track the dust devils, Valentin’s team exploited a feature of the data that is typically undesirable.
Views from various channels are combined to create a single image for both spacecraft; each channel views Mars from a particular direction or in a particular color, or both. There is a slight lag between views by design. As long as the surface is stationary, this delay is innocuous; however, whenever something is moving, like clouds or dust devils, it may result in minor “color offsets” in the finished image. According to Valentin, “we turned image noise into valuable scientific measurements”—these offsets were precisely what the researchers were searching for.
Up to nine image channels are combined in a Mars Express imaging sequence, with a 7–19 second lag between each image channel. If a dust devil passes below during these delays, it moves a short distance, giving the researchers the opportunity to gauge its speed. The team was able to observe the dust devil’s oscillations from left to right and the changes in its speed over time because this study employed five distinct image channels.
In a single Mars Express imaging sequence, the dust devil is seen navigating through the five channels in the GIF below.
Images captured using the Colour and Surface Stereo Imaging System (CaSSIS) of ExoMars TGO combine two views that were taken either 46 seconds apart for stereo images or one second apart for colour images. Even though there isn’t any wobble or acceleration visible, the additional delay allows us to see dust devils traveling farther between shots.
With a one-second lag between shots, the dust devil was captured by ExoMars TGO in the first GIF below. The identical dust devil is imaged with a 46-second delay in the second GIF.
The ESA project scientist for both missions, Colin Wilson, says, “It’s fantastic to see researchers using Mars Express and ExoMars TGO for completely unexpected research.”. On Mars, dust has an impact on everything, including the local weather and our ability to take pictures from orbit. The dust cycle’s importance cannot be overstated. “”.
Notes for editors.
Bickel et al.’s article “Dust Devil Migration Patterns show Strong Near-surface Winds across Mars”. is released in Science Advances today. DOI: adw5170/10.1126/sciadv dot.
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