Dust, Sand, and Winds Within an Active Martian Storm in Jezero Crater

Abstract

Rovers and landers on Mars have experienced local, regional, and planetary-scale dust storms. However, in situ documentation of active lifting within storms has remained elusive. Over 5-11 January 2022 (L_S 153°-156°), a dust storm passed over the Perseverance rover site. Peak visible optical depth was ∼2, and visibility across the crater was briefly reduced. Pressure amplitudes and temperatures responded to the storm. Winds up to 20 m s^-1 rotated around the site before the wind sensor was damaged. The rover imaged 21 dust-lifting events-gusts and dust devils-in one 25-min period, and at least three events mobilized sediment near the rover. Rover tracks and drill cuttings were extensively modified, and debris was moved onto the rover deck. Migration of small ripples was seen, but there was no large-scale change in undisturbed areas. This work presents an overview of observations and initial results from the study of the storm.

Figure 1

Meteorology summary from the start of sol 309 to the end of sol 321: (a) Visible optical depth from Mastcam‐Z (black circles), Skycam (blue diamonds), Radiation and Dust Sensor (slate gray line fragments); Navcam line‐of‐sight extinction per 10‐km (olive x and + for color and gray‐scale images); and 9‐μm optical depth from Thermal Infrared Radiometer (orange, scale 2x different); (b) pressure; (c) temperature for surface (magenta), 1.45‐m air (black), and lowest 200 m of the atmosphere (orange); (d) wind direction, with 1‐min average speed shown via color‐bar from 0 to 13 m s⁻¹, circles indicating gusts >15 m s⁻¹, and vertical lines showing the two boom failures. Relative uncertainties are typically smaller than the size of the symbols.

Figure 2

Dust activity seen in Navcam frames on sol 313 in sequence “ncam00535” looking toward azimuth 305°. Each image has been filtered via mean frame removal with 2x the difference frame added back in, to enhance visibility of the changes. (See Movies S2 and Movie S3).

Figure 3

Changes immediately around the rover as seen in Rear (a), sol 286; (b), sol 316) and Front Hazcam (c), sol 311; (d), sol 315; (e), sol 322). (See Movie S3 and Movie S4.).

Figure 4

Changes in the rover site are shown in (a) sol 286–310 (top) and 321 (bottom) Mastcam‐Z panoramas; (b) Navcam deck images on sols 286 (top) and 321 (bottom); (c) sol 318 Mastcam‐Z 110‐mm image of drill cuttings removal; (d) Mastcam‐Z 110‐mm image of ripple migration from sol 290 (left) to 320 (right); (e) Navcam images showing tracks, ripples, and sand‐blasting of wheels, sol 286 (left) and 321 (right); (f) Mastcam‐Z calibration target images; and (g) a calibration target detail with Supercam (Maurice et al., 2021). (See Movies S5–S10).