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back to article Boffins reckon Mars quite blustery actually

A new geophysical study of Mars' sand dunes has claimed that the Red Planet may be a windy place after all, despite the evidence of previous experiments. The shifting red sands of the planet have up till now been attributed to carbon dioxide ice sublimation, since boffins believed that strong winds weren't a possibility in the …

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  1. Alister

    Didn't Spirit or Opportunity have an anemometer strapped to them somewhere, so we could get an idea of real wind speeds, rather than computer simulations?

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    1. Code Monkey
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      A child's windmill in sight of the camera would've done the trick

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    2. Paul RND*1000
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      Apparently not (might have been too much weight), though "Curiosity" will be carrying a weather station with it.

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  3. Mike VandeVelde
    Alert

    Wormsign!

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    1. Daniel B.
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      No spice nearby, though...

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  4. All names Taken
    Paris Hilton

    Dear Boffins

    M'ars is quite blustery and at times very blustery indeed.

    There seem to be strong associations between dietary input and gaseous output at empirical/observation levels and a whole lot of research identifying, qualifying and quantifying these associations seems critically important.

    A. C.

    ps: funding bid is in the post

    AC

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  5. Paul Hovnanian Silver badge

    A piece of string

    A piece of string tied to a vertical mast on a rover and we'd have the answer.

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  6. Richard Pennington 1
    Boffin

    As seen from Earth!

    Mars is a planet well known for having occasional planet-wide sandstorms. I think one of those would qualify as "quite blustery" ... as well as being quite able to move the odd sand dune.

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    1. majorursa
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      Why didn't they ask you?

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    2. stolennomenclature
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      Happy

      sandstorms

      That's what I thought too. Sandstorms without wind is a novel concept.

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    3. Ru
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      Boffin

      What makes you think it is sand?

      I was under the impression that there were *dust* storms. A few billion years of a gentle breeze plus a little bit of freeze-thaw action should generate dust particles so fine that even a fairly insubstantial wind could keep them aloft.

      The Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers got caught in a months-long dust storm, and the major issue was the solar panels getting a bit dirty. Clearly the mass of material being shifted by the storm was pretty small.

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  7. Martin Budden Silver badge
    Holmes

    already captured on camera!

    Those two plucky little rovers have already taken photos of dust-devils scooting along.

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