Earthly vehicles on the surface of Mars continue to serve science even after their failure. During landing, each of them left footprints in the sand, as well as exposed their body and widely spaced solar panels to the weather. Red Martian dust settles on all this, which gives an idea of the winds on the surface and their intensity. For future explorers of Mars, this is important information.
Image source: NASA
Flying to another planet and grinding dust in the gears is a disastrous business. It is necessary to understand how dangerous dust can be for microclimate systems in colonies and for machine mechanisms. Modern missions to Mars have made it possible to disturb its surface and at the same time created a kind of blank slate, from the drawings on which one can clearly monitor the rate of “circulation” of sand on the Red Planet. This is regularly done by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter using the high-resolution Imagine Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera.
The MRO satellite monitors all equipment abandoned on Mars and its landing sites. The latest valuable data for understanding the dynamics of dust distribution on the planet was provided by observations of the InSight automatic station. It stopped operating in December 2022 when its solar panels stopped producing the required amount of power. Based on the level of voltage output, NASA could monitor the dust dynamics of InSight’s solar panels while it was still operating, and with the help of observations from orbit in subsequent years. Also a good indicator of dust were the marks in the sand at the station’s landing site, which it left with its engines.
Dust on Mars is the main factor in changing the landscape. In particular, it settles on the walls of Martian craters. There is no tectonic activity on this planet (no tectonic plates), so the craters do not disappear anywhere and their age can be indirectly judged by the volume of dust deposited there. Since tectonics on Earth erases craters from the face of the planet, by the “pockmarks” on the face of Mars we can judge the frequency and periods of meteorites falling on the planet and based on this make estimates and forecasts for the Earth.
«Even though we no longer have contact with InSight, it still tells us about Mars, scientists say. “By tracking how much dust collects on the surface and how much is carried away by wind and dust devils, we are learning more about the wind, the dust cycle and other processes that shape the planet.”