Mars’s hostile environment presents significant challenges for measuring wind speeds, but new advancements are making it possible to collect more accurate data.
Researchers have developed a novel sonic anemometric system using piezoelectric transducers, enabling faster and more precise measurements of Martian winds. This technology, which could measure up to 100 wind speeds per second, represents a significant improvement over previous methods. The potential to gather more detailed data could be crucial for future Mars missions, including the operation of small vehicles like the Ingenuity helicopter.
Challenges in Measuring Wind Speeds on Mars
Mars has a notoriously inhospitable environment, with temperatures that fluctuate dramatically over the course of a Martian day and average minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Its surface is mostly covered in red dust, with terrain typified by craters, canyons, and volcanoes. And its atmosphere is extremely thin, comprising only about 1% of the density of Earth’s.
Needless to say, measuring wind speeds on the red planet is challenging. Martian landers have been able capture measurements — some gauging the cooling rate of heated materials when winds blow over them, others using cameras to image “tell-tales” that blow in the wind. Both anemometric methods have yielded valuable insight into the planet’s climate and atmosphere.
But there’s still room for improvement in the astronomical toolshed, especially as plans to send astronauts to Mars unfold in the coming years.
Innovations in Wind Measurement Technology
In JASA, published on behalf of the Acoustical Society of America by AIP Publishing, researchers from Canada and the U.S. demonstrated a novel sonic anemometric system featuring a pair of narrowband piezoelectric transducers to measure the travel time of sound pulses through Martian air. The study accounted for variables including transducer diffraction effects and wind direction.
“By measuring sound travel time differences both forward and backward, we can accurately measure wind in three dimensions,” said author Robert White. “The two major advantages of this method are that it’s fast and it works well at low speeds.”
Implications for Future Mars Missions
The researchers hope to be able to measure up to 100 wind speeds per second and at speeds as low as 1 cm/s, a remarkable contrast to previous methods that could register only about 1 wind speed per second and struggled to track speeds below 50 cm/s.
“By measuring quickly and accurately, we hope to be able to measure not only mean winds, but also turbulence and fluctuating winds,” said White. “This is important for understanding atmospheric variables that could be problematic for small vehicles such as the Ingenuity helicopter that flew on Mars recently.”
Accuracy and Speed of the New System
The researchers characterized ultrasonic transducers and sensors over a wide range of temperatures and a narrow range of pressures in carbon dioxide, the primary atmospheric gas on Mars. With their selections, they showed only nominal error rates would result from temperature and pressure changes.
Looking Ahead to Future Mars Exploration
“The system we’re developing will be 10 times faster and 10 times more accurate than anything previously used,” said White. “We hope it will produce more valuable data as future missions to Mars are considered and provide useful information on the Martian climate, perhaps also with implications for better understanding the climate of our own planet.”
Reference: “Modeling and characterization of gas coupled ultrasonic transducers at low pressures and temperatures and implications for sonic anemometry on Mars” by Robert D. White, Rishabh Chaudhary, Zijia Zhao, Luisa Chiesa, Ian Neeson and Don Banfield, 13 August 2024, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA).
DOI: 10.1121/10.0028008
1 Comment
We could use this info to redirect dark matter to Mars and warm it up.
When my wife first suggested that dark matter might be causing climate change I laughed. Dark matter after all should be a constant, I thought. When we began looking at the data I stopped laughing. Dark matter it seems is not a constant.
Global Warming is happening but dark matter is the chicken and Co2 is the egg.
Dark matter phase transitions appear to be a primary internal heater of the planets. If the solar system passes through an area of higher liquid dark matter content the planets cores would all receive more heat due to increased phase transitions thus heating the earth from the inside out. That means if we redirect part of the dark matter circulation of Venus or Earth to Mars we could warm it up. Mars also passes through streams of dark matter headed to every planet capturing slightly more of these would also help. These streams may be more like intermittent clouds going by on a windy day by the time they reach Mars orbit.
Heating of the planet from the inside out would result in :
Increased ground temperatures
Increased sea temperatures
Increased nighttime temperatures
Increased volcanic activity
Increased earthquakes
We are currently passing through the S1 dark Matter stream which, as it is going the opposite direction around the galaxy was described as a dark matter hurricane. From spring to fall the earth is downstream from the sun. And from July to December the earth is traveling with the S1 stream and from January to June we get our maximum ongoing dark matter exposure as we travel into the S1stream. It would be interesting to see if the upper atmosphere temperatures are lower in the spring than the fall due to more incoming dark matter. There have also been peer reviewed papers that discuss dark matter annihilation(or in my hypothesis phase transition)heating the earth from the inside, they did not mention any impact to climate change or the S1 dark matter stream.
We may also be subject to surges of dark matter which mean heat at the surface and cool in the upper atmosphere just before.
June-July 2020 Earth Mercury Venus Mars Jupiter Saturn conjunctions. This means that the earth passed through several consecutive dark matter streams
July 2020 Siberian heatwave and Antarctica temperature spike
Jan 9 2022 Venus Earth conjunction this resulted in an increase in the amount of dark matter leaving the sun and Venus
March 18 2022 Concordia Station spiked 39 C degrees due to unusual air patterns near Australia
North Pole regions hit 30C above normal
May 2022 mars crosses the dark matter stream to Saturn
May 4, 2022 a 4.7 magnitude Marsquake occurs due to tectonic activity.
March 26 2024 the Parker Solar Probe began its lap around the sun on April 4 it came out on the other side of the sun to start back towards Venus. In between it was actually inside of the Alfven Limit which is where I believe the surface of the dark matter sphere that surrounds the sun lies. This would be the equivalent of a speed boat sending a wake towards the earth.
April 11 mercury and earth are in an inferior conjunction which would also send a bit of extra dark matter in earths direction.
Mid June 2024 multiple heat waves.
Venus atmospheric temperatures from 2009-2017 also were higher after conjunctions and the atmospheric wind speeds have increased by 33% probably due to the increase in incoming dark matter.
Venus atmospheric temperatures from 2009-2017 also were higher after conjunctions
Venus atmospheric tsunami
If the dark matter spin off to the sun happens every 5 days on average and coincides with the wave facing the sun it may be proof of dark matter. During conjunctions if the tsunami is facing earth we get an extra surge of dark matter heading to the earth which also affects the time it takes for the tsunami to circle Venus. The gravity well fills up and dumps back to the sun but if it fills faster due to a conjunction it can spill toward the earth resulting in higher temperatures about 60 days later. The streams of liquid dark matter are constantly overflowing the suns dark matter sphere which extends to the Alfven radius. This distance varies dependant on how much dark matter reaches the point at which it vaporizes. (Velocity/gravity/temperature)
NASA issued a climate change warning for Mars after Mariner 9
Neptune has been heating up since 2018