How Does NASA Monitor Dust Storm On Mars?

Learn how NASA’s satellite fleet helps provide weather Information for the missions on the surface of Mars.  Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Transcript

00:00January 2022. A dust storm nearly twice the size of the United States blankets Mars' southern

00:12hemisphere, reducing sunlight and uniting NASA's spacecraft to help one another through the storm.

00:19NASA's Curiosity rover captured these images as the dust rolled in, obscuring the horizon.

00:25Also in the storm's path was NASA's InSight lander, which had to stop its science work after dust

00:32prevented sunlight from reaching the solar panels. InSight hunkered down for 11 days to conserve

00:38battery power, but didn't weather the storm alone. A fleet of NASA orbiters monitor dust storms from

00:45above and serves as a lifeline to Earth, relaying data from Mars' explorers back to the team. Dust

00:53storms like this recent one start close to the ground and are spread by wind as they rise,

00:59warming the cold Martian atmosphere. Storms are first detected by MRO's Mars Color Imager,

01:05or MARSI, which produces a daily global weather map. As dust rises in the atmosphere, MRO's Mars

01:13Climate Sounder instrument measures temperature to determine how fast the storm could spread.

01:18MAVEN studies the upper atmosphere, including how dust affects the escape of water and other gases from

01:25the atmosphere. And for 20 years, Odyssey's Thermal Emission Imaging System, or THEMIS, has helped measure

01:33global dust activity over time. The orbiter sends most of InSight's data to Earth, but as Odyssey went to

01:41check in on InSight, it experienced a software issue. The Odyssey team swung into action, recovering quickly

01:48so engineers could send new instructions to InSight. The dust even grounded NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter,

01:57postponing flights until conditions improved. Dust storms formed during all Martian seasons. Some can

02:03balloon in a matter of days, like the 2018 global dust storm, which led to the end of NASA's Opportunity

02:11rover. Despite the challenges dust creates for spacecraft, studying storms is critical for creating

02:17future weather forecasts and preparing for a potential human mission to Mars. To get the latest updates,

02:25follow at NASA JPL and at NASA Mars on social media, or take a deeper dive on the mission websites at mars.nasa.gov.