Mars dust devils point to planet wide gale force winds
by Clarence Oxford
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Oct 09, 2025
Despite Mars’s tenuous air, winds there play a dominant role in climate and dust transport. An international team led by the University of Bern reports that dust devils and the winds enveloping them routinely surge to 44 m/s, roughly 160 km/h, far exceeding earlier assumptions based on surface measurements.
The study mined European orbiter data from CaSSIS on ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and HRSC on Mars Express. “Using a state-of-the-art deep learning approach, we were able to identify dust devils in over 50,000 satellite images,” said first author Valentin Bickel.
“Our study is therefore based exclusively on data from European Mars exploration,” he added.
The team tracked about 300 events in stereo pairs to calculate motion and speed. Nicolas Thomas explained: “Stereo images are images of the same spot on the surface of Mars, but taken a few seconds apart. These images can therefore be used to measure the movement of dust devils.”
Bickel noted: “If you put the stereo images together in a sequence, you can observe how dynamically the dust devils move across the surface.” The stronger, straight-line winds likely inject far more dust into the atmosphere than previously estimated, shaping weather, dunes, and slope streaks over nearly two decades of observations.
Daniela Tirsch said: “A better understanding of the wind conditions on Mars is crucial for the planning and execution of future landed missions,” adding, “With the help of the new findings on wind dynamics, we can model the Martian atmosphere and the associated surface processes more precisely,” while Bickel concluded: “In the long term, our research should help to make the planning of Mars missions more efficient.”
Research Report:Dust Devil Migration Patterns Reveal Strong Near-surface Winds across Mars
Related Links
University of Bern
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