ExoMars TGO catches dust devils on Mars

Dust devils are whirlwinds of dust that are blown across Mars’s surface. They are one way that dust gets lifted into the Red Planet’s thin atmosphere and transported from one place to another.

The Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS) on board ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) captured these three dust devils tracking across the martian surface on 8 November 2021. 1039 of these tornadoes were found as part of new research published in Science Advances, which used 20 years of images from European Mars orbiters to trace strong surface winds on the Red Planet.

ExoMars TGO creates a single colour image by combining views from separate channels. By design, there is a delay of about one second between the individual views. This delay causes no problems as long as the surface is static, however it can cause slight ‘colour offsets’ in the final image whenever something is moving, such as clouds and dust devils. The researchers used this delay to measure the dust devil’s speed and direction.

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[Image description: A colour satellite image of Mars shows several faint, swirling dust devils – small tornado-like columns of dust – moving across a dusty, cratered surface. The dust devils appear as light streaks or spots, casting subtle shadows as they travel. The terrain is reddish-brown with scattered circular craters and textured ground.