Phoenix photographed and felt eddies on Mars

The Mars lander Phoenix recently photographed several dust elves dancing across the arctic plains which were felt as a drop in air pressure as one passed by the lander

The eddies that lift the dust were expected in this area, but were not detected in previous photographs of Phoenix. The Phoenix stereoscopic camera captured 29 images of the western and southwestern horizon on September 8, during the midday hours of the 104th lunar day. The next day, after the images were transmitted to Earth, members of the Phoenix science team immediately spotted the dust gnomes. "It was a surprise to find that the gnomes looked so good that they adapted to our imaging process," said Mark Lemon of Texas A&M University, the chief scientist of the Phoenix stereoscopic camera.

"After seeing a pair of sprites in this way, we did further processing and found dust sprites in 12 of the images. These are at least six sprite events that appeared in the images, some of them in more than one image. They range from 2 meters in diameter to 5 meters.

"It will be interesting to follow in the coming days and weeks to see if there are many dust elves or if this is an isolated case" says Lemon. The Phoenix team does not fear any damage to the lander from these swirling winds. "The atmosphere of Mars is so thin, the winds the spacecraft will feel are within the design of the lander," says Ed Sedby, shuttle program manager at Lockheed-Martin Space Systems, which built the spacecraft. "The lander is very rigid with the exception of one exception - the array of solar collectors."

The Phoenix systems monitor the air pressure every day, and that day the camera saw dust sprites, and the pressure gauge showed a sharper drop than ever. The changes were still smaller than the daily changes in air pressure between daytime and nighttime, but in a much shorter time.

"During the mission we detected turbulent events that reduce air pressure for 20-30 seconds in the middle of the day," says Peter Taylor of York University in Toronto, Canada, and a member of the Phoenix science team. "In the last few weeks, we have seen a continuous amplification and now it seems that these eddies are strong enough and can pick up dust with them."

A major factor in the strengthening of the air vortices is the increase in temperature differences between daytime and nighttime hours. During the day, the temperature in the Phoenix landing area is minus 30 degrees Celsius. On the same day when the dust plumes were lifted, the lander's vane testified that the wind reached a speed of 5 meters per second. Images from spacecraft orbiting Mars have previously indicated the existence of dust elves in the area where the Phoenix landed. "We expected dust elves, but we weren't sure how often they appeared," said Leslie Tampari of NASA's JPL. "They may be rare and Phoenix just got lucky. We will continue to look for dust elves at the Phoenix landing site whether they are common or not."

The dust elves that Phoenix has observed so far are much smaller than these Which he had taken The Mars Spirit vehicle located near the equator.

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